David T Madden

6393493, May 21, 2002

Apr 20, 1998

09/062893

David Madden - Austin TX
Mike Steed - Round Rock TX
Irwan Djajadi - Austin TX

National Instruments Corporation - Austin TX

G06F 954

709321, 710 23

A USB-based data acquisition system including virtual buffer software which increases USB data transfer rates with minimal changes to DAQ driver level software. The virtual buffer software operates to receive or intercept calls made by the DAQ driver level software to acquire data from the device, wherein the DAQ driver level software is designed to read the data from the device one sample at a time from the device. The virtual buffer software intercepts the call and requests the data in bulk packets from the device. The virtual buffer software then stores the received packets of data in a virtual buffer or virtual FIFO maintained in computer system memory. The DAQ driver level software then obtains the data from the computer system memory using much faster transfers. The virtual buffer software emulates operation of the device, including generation of interrupts and responses to status register reads, thus âfoolingâ the DAQ driver level software into thinking the data is being acquired from the device. Thus, the present invention allows for much faster data transfers, while requiring minimal or no changes to the existing DAQ driver level software.

6412028, Jun 25, 2002

Apr 6, 1999

09/286701

Michael R. Steed - Round Rock TX
David W. Madden - Austin TX

National Instruments Corporation - Austin TX

G06F 1314

710 22, 710 15, 710 23, 710308, 709301, 702127

A USB-based data acquisition system including virtual DMA software which increases USB data transfer rates with minimal changes to DAQ driver level software. The virtual DMA software operates to receive or intercept DMA instructions provided by the DAQ driver level software to program a DMA controller to acquire data from the device. The virtual DMA software intercepts the DMA instructions and emulates operation of the DMA controller in software. The virtual DMA software operates to request the data in bulk packets from the device. The virtual DMA software then stores the received packets of data in the addresses specified in the DMA instructions. The virtual DMA software thus emulates operation of a DMA device, thus âfoolingâ the DAQ driver level software into thinking the data is being acquired using real DMA transfers. Thus, the present invention allows for much faster data transfers, while requiring minimal or no changes to the existing DAQ driver level software.

6640312, Oct 28, 2003

Aug 1, 2000

09/629349

Andrew Thomson - Austin TX
David W. Madden - Austin TX
Glen Sescila - Pflugerville TX
Aljosa Vrancic - Austin TX

National Instruments Corporation - Austin TX

G06F 1100

714 5, 714 9, 714 43

A system and method for transferring data over a communications medium. A host is coupled to a device through a serial bus lacking error handling capabilities, such as an IEEE 1394 bus. The host may control the device by sending requests accessing its memory registers. The host generates a first request to the device to access a memory address location of the device, and which includes an address and status information indicating whether a prior request to the memory address location returned successfully. The device examines the status information to determine if it is a retry of a prior request, and if so, determines if the prior request completed successfully to the memory address location by comparing the address and data transfer size of the first request to those of the prior request. If identical, then the prior request completed successfully to the memory address location, and the request is ignored. Otherwise, the device retries the prior request.

6839777, Jan 4, 2005

Sep 11, 2000

09/659914

Aljosa Vrancic - Austin TX, US
David W. Madden - Austin TX, US

National Instruments Corporation - Austin TX

G06F 300

710 52, 710 8, 710 22

A system and method for transferring data over a communications medium using data transfer links. A host computer may couple to a device through a serial bus. A buffer of contiguous virtual memory addresses may correspond to non-contiguous physical addresses, which may be stored in a linked list of transfer nodes, preserving the order of the original virtual buffer elements. Each transfer node specifies a data transfer between the host and device, and may be executed by the device DMA Controller. Each node may contain source and/or destination address information, size of the data to be transferred, and a link to the next node. The transfer nodes may be transferred to the device using a double-buffering scheme wherein the device executes the nodes from one half of the link buffer while the host computer transfers further nodes to be executed to the other half of the link buffer. The buffer halves may be switched back and forth between these two processes until all links are executed. To prevent overruns, safety and message links may be inserted into the transfer link list.

7043565, May 9, 2006

Aug 11, 2000

09/638051

David W. Madden - Austin TX, US
Aljosa Vrancic - Austin TX, US

National Instruments Corporation - Austin TX

G06F 15/16

709250, 709217, 709236, 709230, 709231, 710 6, 710 33, 710 35, 719310, 719316, 719321, 718100

A system and method for transferring data over an external transmission medium. A host computer is coupled to a device through a serial bus. A transfer object is configurable to encapsulate data transfer-related functionality, providing a generic interface for transmission of data over a variety of external transmission media and protocols. A user makes one or more transfer requests. Transfer objects corresponding to each request are built and linked together to form a sequential chain. The requests of the transfer objects are executed sequentially. If the current transfer object is the first in the chain, the request is executed on a current thread at passive level or higher, otherwise the request is executed on a system (kernel) thread at dispatch level. When a response to the request returns, control is returned to the current transfer object. The process is repeated until all transfer objects are processed.

7323150, Jan 29, 2008

May 23, 2003

10/444930

Bart F. Bakke - The Woodlands TX, US
David Madden - Alexandria KY, US

Cabot Corporation - Boston MA

C01G 45/12
C22B 26/10
C01D 17/00

423179, 423184, 423193, 423198, 423421, 423199, 4231795, 423201, 423202, 423203

A method for recovering at least one metallic element from ore or other material is described and includes reacting ore or other material with a salt capable of recovering the metallic element from the ore or other material to form a reaction product that includes the metallic element. The method also includes recovering the metallic element from the reaction product. To remove the metallic element from the reaction product, the method can involve crushing the reaction product to form a crushed material and dissolving the crushed material in a solvent to remove the precipitates, thereby leaving a sulfate solution containing the metallic element.

20120234597, Sep 20, 2012

Nov 30, 2010

13/512822

David Madden - League City TX, US

H02G 15/02

174 74 R

An umbilical for use, for example, in deep water applications includes a plurality of power cables and may include other elements bundled together and within a sheath. An end termination at each of the power cables or at a plurality of the power cables includes a resin ferrule around the cable at the end termination and provides a connection between the cable and an installation to which the umbilical is connected.

20150354292, Dec 10, 2015

Dec 12, 2013

14/758456

- Courbevoie, FR
David MADDEN - League City TX, US

E21B 17/20
B32B 5/12
E21B 17/00
G02B 6/44
H01B 7/18
F16L 11/12
B32B 1/08
B32B 5/26

An offshore hydrocarbon-production umbilical having concentrically: an outer sheath, at least two cross-wound armouring layers, and a core enclosed by the armouring layers, and comprising a plurality of elongate active umbilical components, wherein each armouring layer comprises a plurality of reinforced polymer strips. The use of reinforced polymer strips to form the armouring layers achieves a reduced weight but still flexible arrangement, which is significantly easier to manufacture as far fewer strips are required to form the armouring layers compared with the large number of steel wires of conventional armouring layers.