Claims
- 1. An instrumented firefighter's nozzle that determines the settings of the nozzle's pattern selector and bail handle settings, comprising:
a firefighter's nozzle with a pattern selector and a bail handle; and sensors for measuring the settings of the pattern selector and the bail handle.
- 2. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 in which one or more of the sensors are potentiometers.
- 3. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 further including a protective enclosure for the sensors and wiring to increase ruggedness.
- 4. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 further including an RJ-45 connector and standard 8-wire cable and an analog-to-digital converter, wherein the connector and cable are used to transmit the electrical signals from the sensors to the analog-to-digital converter.
- 5. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 further including an analog-to-digital converter and a standard RJ-11 telephone-type wire and connectors, wherein the wire and connectors are used to transmit the electrical signals from the sensors to the analog-to-digital converter.
- 6. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 2 further including a key and keyway for attaching the potentiometer to the nozzle bail handle.
- 7. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 in which a linear potentiometer is used to measure the position of the nozzle pattern selector.
- 8. A method for tracking the position of a firefighter nozzle to determine its location in a space in real time, comprising:
attaching a main bracket to a nozzle; and attaching additional, exchangeable brackets to the main bracket which may hold one of several different kinds of tracking stations, both custom and commercial-off-the-shelf.
- 9. The method of claim 8 in which a standard InterSense IS-600™ tracking station may be rigidly mounted and used.
- 10. The method of claim 8 in which a standard InterSense IS-900™ Stylus tracking station may be rigidly mounted and used.
- 11. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 in which the brackets are further modified to support the attachment of tracking stations without reducing the functionality of the sensors that measure the positions of the pattern selector and bail handle.
- 12. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 in which the sensors and associated brackets are designed in such a way at to be largely non-intrusive to the user and resistant to damage by the user.
- 13. The firefighter's nozzle of claim 1 in which the wires connecting the sensors to the analog-to-digital converter run inside a standard firefighter nozzle hose.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims priority of Provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/195, 503 filed Apr. 6, 2000.
GOVERNMENT RIGHTS
[0002] This invention was made with Government support under Contract Number N61339-98-C-0036 awarded by the Department of the Navy. The Government has certain rights in the invention.
Provisional Applications (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
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60195503 |
Apr 2000 |
US |