Solid-state information pattern discriminating switch
| DWPI Title: Solid-state maze-based switch for use in e.g. electronic latches, has stage optical power output is optically coupled to a maze optical power output , and stage optical power input optically coupled to stage optical power output |
| Abstract: A maze-based switch generally having three functional blocks is disclosed. The first functional block handles communications by accepting an entered maze pattern from an external system controller and outputting the entered maze pattern (and optionally its directional complement) to the second functional block. The second functional block stores the maze pattern (and optionally its directional complement) to a permanent storage element and outputs the stored, entered maze pattern and its directional complement to a series of transistors in the third functional block. The third functional block is an electronic maze in which a correct maze pattern and its directional complement must be received by the transistors for the transistors to pass electrical power through the electronic maze to a connected element. The third functional block may alternatively be implemented with optical elements, optoelectronic elements, microelectromechanical elements, or elements formed by other microsystem technologies. |
| Use: Solid-state maze-based switch. Uses include but are not limited to electronic latches, keypads by entry doors or to cars, devices requiring key cards including automated teller machines (ATMs), biometric-based systems requiring fingerprint, and other applications requiring the authentication of a user with appropriate privileges or the verification of a required set of external conditions, such as a location. |
| Advantage: The switch provides electrical isolation between a logic/storage functional block and a maze functional block, thus potentially improving safety and protection of the switch. |
| Novelty: The switch (100) has a photonic maze functional block (140) adapted to receive an entered maze pattern that includes a sequence of T entered maze pattern characters. A stage optical power input is optically coupled to a maze optical power input (145) when the stage is a first stage of string of T stages and optically coupled to a stage optical power output of an immediately previous stage when the stage is not the first stage of the string of T stages. The stage optical power output is optically coupled to a maze optical power output (150) when the stage is a last stage of the string of T stages. The stage optical power input is optically coupled to the stage optical power output only when a respective one of the T entered maze pattern characters and a respective one of directional complements of the T entered maze pattern characters correspond to a respective one of the T required maze characters. |
| Filed: 11/22/2021 |
| Application Number: US17532108A |
| Tech ID: SD 15152.1 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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