Impact Resistant & Damage Tolerant Aircraft Fuselage
Assigned to Airbus, this patent describes an impact resistant fuselage manufactured with composite materials. It was designed to “guarantee its capability for maintaining stability and proceed to a safe landing, i.e. shall be an impact resistant and damage tolerant fuselage.”
Airbus was also assigned a patent for a “supporting pillar for an aircraft’s structural component manufactured by a selective laser melting process.” (What I can assume are the “upstream pylons” described in the first patent).
Container Delivery System Rapid Deployment Device
One of multiple patent assignments for Boeing this week, this patent relates to a pneumatic deployment device (PDD) for assisting in the ejection of cargo bundles from an aircraft during an airdrop.
Another of Boeing’s patent is for a composite fuselage system with composite fuselage sections.
AeroVironment, an energy systems and UAV company, has been assigned a patent for a hydrogen storage tank for a hydrogen fueled aircraft.
While hydrogen tanks have been used in some automotive applications, the patent cites the need for a light-weight tank capable of long duration storage for use in manned or unmanned aircraft.
In this design, the tank wall is “configured to store a cryogenic fluid in liquid form within a fluid storage space.”
According to the patent, “In a first aspect, the tank is characterized by a gravitational bottom and a gravitational top, and the wall that defines and substantially surrounds the fluid storage space is characterized by a thermal conductivity that is different near the gravitational top from what it is near the gravitational bottom.”
Wingless Hovering of Micro Air Vehicle
Winged micro air vehicles (MAV) are vulnerable to wind gusts for various reasons, citing these issues, this patent describes the need for a MAV design that is less sensitive to wind.
To achieve this, the patent assignee, the University of Florida Research Foundation, has removed the wings altogether. Resembling UFOs of classic science fiction, the new design allows the vehicle to operate without any rotating or moving components, but instead, using electromagnetic and electrohydrodynamic principles.
According to the patent, “The electromagnetic force can be generated by applying a pulsed (alternating/rf) voltage between a set of grounded and powered electrodes separated by a polymer insulator, dielectric, or other material with insulating properties.”
This patent, assigned to Toyota, is simply for “vehicle.” More specifically, for a hybrid car is a vehicle capable of being externally charged through a charging cable.
For clarification (just in case the reader doesn’t know how doors work) the patent also describes:
- “A door portion opened and closed when an occupant gets into and out of a vehicle cabin.”
- “A seat portion which is installed in the vehicle cabin to be adjacent to said door portion and on which the occupant sits.”
- “A window glass capable of being opened and closed in an up-down direction.”
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense