A decorative object comprises a hollow base of relatively hard, moldable material such as ceramic assuming the shape of the object and having a plurality of molded grooves in the outer surface thereof in selected regions. Selected areas of the base as defined by the grooves are covered with an adhered flexible material such as cloth panels whose margins are superimposed upon at least a portion of the grooves. The panel margins are pressed into the grooves with or without superimposed beading. Th...

The disclosed kite comprises two right-angled triangular frameworks symmetric with respect to a common side which forms a right angle with another side of each triangle. The triangular frames are pivotably interconnected through that common side, and a bilateral symmetric wind-bearing surface is carried by the frameworks. An arcuate resilient member connects the free ends of the other sides of the triangles to each other and has a spring constant greater than five times the weight of the kite di...

In a vehicle detector installation employing an inductive sensing loop that is a frequency determining element of an oscillator, the oscillator is provided with a voltage controlled capacitor as another frequency determining element and is made the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) of a phase locked loop whereby the VCO is locked to a reference frequency. The presence of a vehicle in the vicinity of the loop causes the capacitor voltage to vary to maintain lock. The varying voltage is applied ...

A toy comprising, in combination, a flying object, connected through a cable, to a device handle for rotating said object; the handle incorporates an automatic cable unwinding and rewinding device actuated by centrifugal forces.

The invention comprises the combination of a metal post and staple means for securing an object to the post. The object is preferably a wire barrier, such as a barbed wire, although it may take the form of a roadside sign or highway marker. The post has a Vee cross-section and a metal staple is driven into the Vee to interengage with post surfaces at the opening into the Vee. A portion of the secured object is contained within the bight portion of the staple, and in the case of a wire, the latte...

An object, such as a beam-leaded semiconductor chip, is accurately positioned, despite irregularities in its edges. A television camera produces video signals representing line-by-line scannings of the object. Video signals representing object edge position markers are also generated. The amount of overlap between the marker signals and the camera signals is measured over a plurality of line scans, and the results of these measurements are averaged. This average is used to control object positio...

An optical apparatus and method for recognition of three-dimensional objects comprising an uneven illumination to project a striated pattern of illuminated and non-illuminated areas on the object which is scanned along a plurality of successive scan lines for generating video data which is compared with reference data for object recognition purposes.

An object recognition system includes several pivotable cameras and frame stores for capturing images of the moving object from various aspects. The data is passed to compressors to provide simplified correlation of data in correlators also receiving data from a compressed image library to allow the object and/or its orientation to be determined.

A separator or escapement mechanism is disclosed which separates or holds one of serially movable objects, such as the second or nth object from the exit end of a support structure. This support may be a sloping ramp so that the objects, if of circular cross section, may roll toward the exit end. The object at the exit end may be held by a stop and the second or nth object may be engaged by a bar holder along the upper surface thereof regardless of the dimension of such object within a given ran...

An automatic machine for stacking objects, as metal ingots, having a loading unit with a movable carriage operable to carry ingots to an ingot collector and holding unit. The ingots are collected on movable supports located above a rotatable elevator platform. On movement of the supports to the open positions, the ingots are transferred to the elevator platform or the top layer of ingots carried by the elevator platform. Consecutive layers of ingots are normally disposed with respect to each oth...