公开(公告)号：US06402031B1

公开(公告)日：2002-06-11

申请号：US08997188

申请日：1997-12-16

申请人： Donald R Hall

发明人： Donald R Hall

IPC分类号： G06F1900

CPC分类号： G06F3/0317 ,  G05B19/00 ,  G06F1/1613 ,  G06F1/1632 ,  G06F1/1635 ,  G06F1/1684 ,  G06F3/0421 ,  H05K1/144

摘要： A weather resistant modular sensor and computing platform reduces costs and enhances versatility of sensor systems. Rapidly evolving electronic technology results in hyper-obsolescence wherein sensor systems that are state of the art technology when designed, fall behind the art quickly as new transducers, batteries and components are developed. A cylindrical shaped modular system provides an architecture for up-grading sensors, batteries, special modules, communications, and control. A modular architecture extends the life cycle of a system and avoids hyper-obsolescence and the requirement to design a complete new system to incorporate new technology. Modularity and low cost manufacturing methods enable the practical definition of a cylindrical computer. The cylinder shaped enclosures have on their ends a common connection interface to which modules may be added. This provides a long system life cycle and wide ranging versatility. The size of the platform is not restricted. Larger systems are capable of supporting more sophisticated processing. A scaled up version of the modular platform provides an outdoor weather resistant community computing server.