Patents Assigned to AIRA, INC.
  • Patent number: 11336116
    Abstract: A wireless charging system is configured to charge one or more receiver devices simultaneously. The wireless charging system includes multiple coils that may be driven independently based on a feedback system with one or more feedback channels. One of the feedback channels may be a voltage and/or current measurement of coil driving signals from the coils that are indicative of receiver device presences on the wireless charging system. A coil driving signal may be sampled and processed using discrete Fourier transform to determine amplitude and phase information of the signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2022
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: William Paul Abajian, Jules Marie Xavier Laffitte, John MacDonald, Viswajit Natarajan, Lixin Shi, Jake Lee Vander Ploeg, Xiaoping Zhu
  • Patent number: 11336129
    Abstract: Systems, methods and apparatus for wireless charging are disclosed. A charging device has a charging circuit that includes a charging coil located proximate to a surface of the charging device, a pulse generating circuit, and a controller. The pulse generating circuit may be configured to provide a pulsed signal to the charging circuit, where each pulse in the pulsed signal includes a plurality of cycles of a clock signal that has a frequency greater or less than a nominal resonant frequency of the charging circuit. The controller may be configured to detect a change in resonance of the charging circuit based on a difference in response of the charging circuit to first and second pulses transmitted in the pulsed signal. The controller may be further configured to determine that a chargeable device has been placed in proximity to the charging coil based on the difference in responses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2022
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: Eric Heindel Goodchild, John Winters
  • Patent number: 11336117
    Abstract: A wireless charging system is configured to charge one or more receiver devices simultaneously. The wireless charging system includes multiple coils that may be driven independently based on a feedback system with one or more feedback channels. One of the feedback channels may be demodulated communication signals from the one or more receiver devices. The demodulation may be performed by a communication demodulation circuit with configurable gain. The demodulated communication signals are processed for error correction at a bit level and a packet level, which improves accuracy despite presence of multiple receiver devices and noisy conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2022
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: William Paul Abajian, Jules Marie Xavier Laffitte, John MacDonald, Lixin Shi, Jake Lee Vander Ploeg, Xiaoping Zhu
  • Patent number: 11296550
    Abstract: Systems, methods and apparatus for wireless charging are disclosed. A charging device has a plurality of charging cells provided on a charging surface, a charging circuit and a controller. The controller may be configured to cause the charging circuit to provide a charging current to a resonant circuit when a receiving device is placed on the charging surface, provide a measurement slot by causing the charging circuit to decrease or terminate the charging current for a period of time and determine whether the receiving device has been removed from the charging surface based on measurement of a characteristic of the resonant circuit during the measurement slot. The characteristic of the resonant circuit may be representative of electromagnetic coupling between a transmitting coil in the resonant circuit and a receiving coil in the receiving device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: Eric Heindel Goodchild, John Winters, James Scott
  • Patent number: 11264839
    Abstract: Systems, methods and apparatus for wireless charging are disclosed. A charging device has a plurality of charging cells provided on a charging surface, a charging circuit and a controller. The controller may be configured to cause the charging circuit to provide a charging current to a resonant circuit when a receiving device is placed on the charging surface, detect a change or rate of change in voltage or current level associated with the resonant circuit, provide a measurement slot by terminating the charging current for a period of time, and determine that the receiving device has been removed from the charging surface by performing a passive or digital ping procedure during the measurement slot.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: Eric Heindel Goodchild, John Winters, James Scott
  • Patent number: 11171502
    Abstract: Systems, methods and apparatus for wireless charging are disclosed. An apparatus has a wireless charging apparatus has a battery charging power source coupled to a charging circuit, a plurality of charging cells configured to provide a charging surface, and a controller. The controller may be configured to provide a pulse to the charging circuit, detect a frequency of oscillation of the charging circuit responsive to the pulse or a rate of decay of the oscillation of the charging circuit, and determine that a chargeable device has been placed in proximity to a coil of the charging circuit based on changes in a characteristic of the charging circuit. The pulse may have a duration that is less than half the period of a nominal resonant frequency of the charging circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 9, 2021
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: Eric Goodchild, Jake Slatnick
  • Patent number: 11063480
    Abstract: Systems, methods and apparatus for wireless charging are disclosed. A charging device has a charging circuit that includes a charging coil located proximate to a surface of the charging device, a pulse generating circuit, and a controller. The pulse generating circuit may be configured to provide a pulsed signal to the charging circuit, where each pulse in the pulsed signal includes a plurality of cycles of a clock signal that has a frequency greater or less than a nominal resonant frequency of the charging circuit. The controller may be configured to detect a change in resonance of the charging circuit based on a difference in response of the charging circuit to first and second pulses transmitted in the pulsed signal. The controller may be further configured to determine that a chargeable device has been placed in proximity to the charging coil based on the difference in responses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 13, 2021
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: Eric Heindel Goodchild, John Winters
  • Patent number: 10958110
    Abstract: Systems, methods and apparatus for wireless charging are disclosed. A method for decoding data includes demodulating voltage or current waveform in each tank circuit of a plurality of inductive power transfer circuits to obtain at least one demodulated signal from each tank circuit, capturing a bit sequence from each demodulated signal by clocking signal state of each demodulated signal through a direct memory access (DMA) circuit, streaming bit sequences received from the DMA circuit into a plurality of data streams, and decoding one or more messages from the plurality of data streams.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 23, 2021
    Assignee: AIRA, INC.
    Inventors: Eric Heindel Goodchild, John Winters