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Archive for Virtual Propeller Guards

FLIR receives Virtual Propeller Guard Patent

FLIR was awarded U.S. Patent 10,931,934 for Watercraft Thermal Monitoring System and Methods on 23 February 2021. This patent teaches the use of one or more imaging modules on the vessel scanning one of more areas around the vessel using thermal or non thermal imaging to detect people, debris, or docks in the water near […]

Sensor Based Detection of people near boat propellers: Patents

The phrase Virtual Propeller Guard broadly refers to methods used to detect the presence or likely presence of people or objects in the water that may be struck by or pulled into a boat propeller. Long ago we posted a more concise definition of Virtual Propeller Guards. With increasing activity in the use of sensors […]

Brunswick follows our lead, files patent for neural network Virtual Propeller Guard

Brunswick Corporation filed U.S. Patent Application “Person Detection in a Marine Environment” on 5 May 2016. The patent application (US 2017/0323154 A1) was published by the U.S. Patent Office on 9 November 2017. As of late January 2018, the patent has yet to be granted. The basics of Brunswick’s patent application teaches the use of […]

Detecting People Near Boats More Reliably Using Optical Image Stabilization: An Invention

Our Detecting People Near Boats More Reliably Using Optical Image Stabilization invention disclosure below was posted on 19 September 2012. We will make no changes to the text below the line following this paragraph except to correct misspellings, punctuation, and to update html/computer codes and links. Any updates to the invention will be posted below […]

Volvo Penta Patents Virtual Propeller Guard System

On June 5, 2012, Volvo Penta was issued U.S. Patent 8,195,381 for a Safety System for Marine Vessels. The patent focuses on detecting people in the water in conjunction with digital anchors. UPDATE note – on September 18, 2012 Volvo Penta was issued another patent, U.S. Patent 8,271,155 for technologies surrounding this same concept. GPS […]

Animal Presence Detection Systems for Highways

Many areas of the country, including ours, are know for large animals being on the road from time to time. In our region, the problem is most often deer at dusk, just after sunset, or during the night. Many drivers become oblivious to the ever present Deer Crossing signs (often with a few bullet holes […]

Yale and MIT Release Study of Human Sensing Methods

A paper by Thiago Teixeira and Andreas Savvides from Yale and Gershon Dublon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology surveys methods used to detect the presence of humans. This work could be very useful for those designing virtual propeller guards (propeller guarding technologies based on sensors). The paper, A Survey of Human-Sensing: Methods for Detecting […]

Guard Technologies Category Launched

Prior to mid 2011 we captured technologies with potential applications to virtual propeller guards (sensor based guards) or to conventional boat propeller guards on our Technologies page, now titled Prop Guard Technologies