US Patent Issued to The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy on Nov. 4 for "Optical feedback control mechanism for solid reactant strand positioning" (District Of Columbia, Maryland Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,460,816, issued on Nov. 4, was assigned to The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy (Arlington, Va.).

"Optical feedback control mechanism for solid reactant strand positioning" was invented by Clayton Geipel (Washington) and Brian Fisher (Crofton, Md.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides a method and apparatus for controlled burning of experimental solid fuel test strands. The fuel test strand is advanced by a screw attached to a computer-controlled stepper motor. The stepper motor controls the fuel test strand position via a proportional-integral-derivative (PID)...