Flight Control Surface Position Sensing Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 52.9% of all 1,037 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 60.9% — a small group has occupied most of the claim space.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. Activity peaked in 2019 at 70 filings and fell from 54 in 2021 to 24 in 2024, a 56% drop over that span; 2025-26 figures are still filling in due to publication lag.
- One company anchors the field. The leading assignee alone accounts for 388 of the 1,037 records — more than the next several ranked competitors combined.
Filing growth compares 2021 (54 records) with 2024 (24) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 1,037 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Flight control surface position sensing spans the transducers, resolvers and signal-processing chains that report where a control surface actually sits back to the flight control computer. The search string underlying this dataset combines sensor hardware terms — variable differential transformer, surface position transducer, resolver position sensor — with the signal-conditioning concerns that make a position reading trustworthy in flight: excitation frequency, signal demodulation, dual channel sensing, temperature drift and cable shielding. The result is 1,037 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real activity. The composition and concentration figures below use the full record set; the filing trend and growth comparison use the years that are complete enough to compare fairly.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,037 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
A field past its filing peak
Filings ran from 21 in 2017 to a peak of 70 in 2019, then eased; the comparable window shows 54 filings in 2021 falling to 24 in 2024, a 56% decline. Because publication lags filing, 2025 and 2026 are not yet reliable evidence of a further slowdown.
Claims cluster outside the core sensor classes
A61M (devices for body fluids) covers 31.3% of the 1,037 records and G01D (general measuring and recording) covers 17.3% — the two largest classes by a wide margin. G01F, G05D, B67D, G01B, A61J and F15B each hold single-digit-to-low-double-digit shares, and because records commonly carry more than one class these shares sum to well over 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,037 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Flight Control Surface Position Sensing with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about flight control surface position sensing and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe record that anchors the field
US7248994B1 — Digital method and apparatus for sensing position with a linear variable differential transformer
An apparatus and method for determining a linear position from a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) including a primary coil driven by an excitation signal, and two secondary coils coupled to two correlated signals. The method converts the correlated signals to a digital estimate by comparing each correlated signal to an analog feedback signal and incrementally adjusting the digital estimate in response to sampling the comparison result at an estimation frequency.Filed by Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, granted 2007-07-24.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050046584A1 | Asset system control arrangement and method | 1,779 |
| 2 | US7256695B2 | Remotely powered and remotely interrogated wireless digital sensor telemetry system | 1,679 |
| 3 | US20050116673A1 | Methods and systems for controlling the operation of a tool | 1,517 |
| 4 | US20060208169A1 | Vehicular restraint system control system and method using multiple optical imagers | 935 |
| 5 | US20030209893A1 | Occupant sensing system | 652 |
| 6 | US7164117B2 | Vehicular restraint system control system and method using multiple optical imagers | 586 |
| 7 | US7663502B2 | Asset system control arrangement and method | 547 |
| 8 | US20040113790A1 | Remotely powered and remotely interrogated wireless digital sensor telemetry system | 471 |
| 9 | US20110190694A1 | Infusion pump assembly | 356 |
| 10 | US6460567B1 | Sealed motor driven valve | 321 |
Ranked by citation count within the searched corpus. Older records accumulate more citations simply by having existed longer, so treat this as a signal of influence rather than of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for a filing decision
Three findings that change where a new applicant should file, and where prior art is dense enough to make design-around the safer route.
A small group occupies most of the claim space
With the top 5 assignees holding 52.9% of all 1,037 records and the top 10 holding 60.9%, new entrants filing on core LVDT excitation, demodulation and dual-channel architectures are filing into dense prior art held by a handful of established aerospace and industrial-controls suppliers.
Volume has cooled from its 2019 peak
After peaking at 70 filings in 2019, activity fell from 54 in 2021 to 24 in 2024. That is a real decline over a comparable window, but 2025-26 counts are still incomplete because of publication lag and should not be read as a further drop.
Claims spread well beyond core position sensing
A61M and G01D together cover 31.3% and 17.3% of the 1,037 records respectively, with G01F, G05D, B67D, G01B, A61J and F15B each contributing smaller but non-trivial shares. Because records can carry multiple IPC classes, the technology is claimed across measurement, actuation and dispensing contexts rather than a single narrow sensor class.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to flight control surface position sensing, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the ranked leadership
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies counted by patent family, drawn from the full 1,037-record set — it is the whole ranking the data endpoint returns, not a curated top-50 or top-100 list.
One assignee dominates the ranking
The leading assignee alone accounts for 388 of the 1,037 records in scope, a share far ahead of the fifth-ranked entrant at 23 and the tenth-ranked at 14. That gap suggests a single applicant has built a broad, defensible portfolio rather than the field being split among comparable-sized players.
After the leaders, filing thins quickly
The top 10 combined hold 60.9% of all records, meaning the remaining 90 ranked companies share the balance in progressively smaller counts. For a new entrant, the practical competitive set is short: a handful of aerospace primes and instrumentation specialists, not a crowded field of equals.
Inventor teams cluster around named individuals
Co-filing activity is limited to 10 identified pairs, with the strongest links running through a single named inventor paired with several collaborators at differing frequencies. This points to concentrated internal engineering teams rather than cross-company joint development.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| DEKA Products LP | 0 | -100% |
| Hamilton Sundstrand Corp | 0 | — |
| The Boeing Co | 0 | — |
| KAMEN DEAN | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc | 0 | — |
| Bell Helicopter Textron Inc | 0 | — |
| LANIGAN RICHARD J | 0 | — |
| Moog Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The figures above establish where claim density sits today. Turning that into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision means going claim-by-claim on the leading portfolios and checking the under-claimed branches for a defensible first-filing position.
Map the leader's full claim scope
With one assignee holding 388 of 1,037 records, understanding exactly which excitation, demodulation and dual-channel architectures are already claimed is the first filter for any new filing in this space.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaStress-test white space candidates
Under-claimed branches such as temperature-drift compensation or cable-shielding self-test look open on IPC composition alone, but need a claim-by-claim check against the top 10 before relying on them.
Run a white space analysis in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee dominates this landscape, holding 388 of the 1,037 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 23 and the tenth-ranked at 14. The top 5 assignees together hold 52.9% of all records, and the top 10 hold 60.9%, so the field is concentrated rather than evenly split. For a new entrant, the practical competitive set to study is short: a small number of aerospace primes and instrumentation specialists rather than dozens of comparable-sized players.
Filing activity peaked in 2019 at 70 records and has since eased; the comparable window shows 54 filings in 2021 falling to 24 in 2024, a 56% decline over three years. That is a genuine slowdown over a period where the data is essentially complete. The 2025 and 2026 counts are not a reliable basis for judging the trend further, because publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months and those years are still filling in.
The dataset's IPC composition shows claims spreading well beyond a narrow sensor class: A61M (devices for body fluids) covers 31.3% of the 1,037 records and G01D (general measuring and recording) covers 17.3%, with G01F, G05D, B67D, G01B, A61J and F15B each adding smaller shares. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages sum to more than 100%, which is expected. The pattern indicates that position-sensing claims are frequently bundled with actuation, dispensing or fluid-measurement contexts rather than filed as standalone sensor patents.
US7248994B1, assigned to Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation and granted in 2007, claims a digital method for converting the correlated secondary-coil signals of a linear variable differential transformer into a position estimate, using comparison against an analog feedback signal and incremental adjustment at an estimation frequency. It is a specific digital-conversion technique rather than a claim over LVDT sensing generally. Anyone designing a new position-sensing scheme should check whether their demodulation and digital-estimation approach maps onto this comparison-and-increment method, since that is the mechanism the claims are drawn around, not the LVDT hardware itself.
Relative to the dense claim coverage around core excitation, demodulation and dual-channel sensing held by the leading assignees, several adjacent branches show thinner coverage: temperature-drift compensation algorithms, cable-shielding integrity self-test, and resolver-to-digital conversion error correction among them. These are candidate areas for a first-filing position, but the IPC composition and concentration figures only indicate where density is lower, not that the area is clear; a claim-by-claim check against the top 10 assignees' portfolios is still necessary before relying on any of them.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.