Patents by Inventor Chris Mi

Chris Mi has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20220416549
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an active equalizer circuit, a battery management system, a power supply system and an electrical equipment. The active equalizer circuit comprises a plurality of switching transistors, a driving transformer, a multi-port converter, a buck converter, and a microcontroller. Each of the switching transistors is coupled to a battery cell in the series battery pack on a one-to-one basis. The multi-port converter comprises an equalizing transformer and a bridge converter, each secondary winding of the bridge converter is coupled to a corresponding plurality of battery cells. The buck converter has an input terminal coupled to an output terminal of the series battery pack and an output terminal coupled to an input terminal of the bridge converter.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2019
    Publication date: December 29, 2022
    Inventors: Chunting Chris MI, Panpan HU, Yunlong SHANG, Bing HAN, Yuhong FU, Xiaohong HU, Dingguo WU
  • Patent number: 10903532
    Abstract: A fault tolerant voltage measurement method for battery management systems is proposed for reliable and prompt cell fault and sensor fault detection. The key of the method is that it correlates one voltage sensor reading with multiple cell voltages and vice versa. When a cell fault occurs, fault readings will be revealed by multiple voltage sensor readings. Similarly, when a sensor fault occurs, multiple cell voltages will be influenced. Compared with the traditional one-to-one correspondence voltage measurement, the proposed method increases the credibility of sensor/cell fault decisions. Furthermore, it does not increase the hardware cost, and is easy to be adopted in real applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2021
    Assignee: THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Bing Xia
  • Publication number: 20200091562
    Abstract: A fault tolerant voltage measurement method for battery management systems is proposed for reliable and prompt cell fault and sensor fault detection. The key of the method is that it correlates one voltage sensor reading with multiple cell voltages and vice versa. When a cell fault occurs, fault readings will be revealed by multiple voltage sensor readings. Similarly, when a sensor fault occurs, multiple cell voltages will be influenced. Compared with the traditional one-to-one correspondence voltage measurement, the proposed method increases the credibility of sensor/cell fault decisions. Furthermore, it does not increase the hardware cost, and is easy to be adopted in real applications.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 4, 2016
    Publication date: March 19, 2020
    Inventors: Chris MI, Bing XIA
  • Patent number: 10298057
    Abstract: A double-sided LCLC-compensated network is proposed for a capacitive power transfer (CPT) system. In one design, four metal plates are used to form two power transmitting and receiving capacitors and the LCLC network is used to compensate the capacitors. In the second design, two extra metal plates are used to couple with the previous four plates at the transmitting and receiving side, respectively, which forms the capacitor-integrated structure. The circuit parameter values are tuned to achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS) of the input side switches. There is also a CLLC topology proposed, which is a similar variation of LCLC circuit. A 3.3 kW input power capacitive power transfer prototype is designed and built. The experiment results show that the proposed CPT system can transfer 3.1 kW output power through an air gap distance of 70 mm with a dc-to-dc efficiency of 92.1%.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 21, 2019
    Assignee: THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Hua Zhang, Fei Lu
  • Patent number: 10000134
    Abstract: A wireless charging system may be used to charge a battery in a vehicle via a receiving coil. The wireless charging system may include a coil charge device, a linear track, a linear motor, and a charge control module. The coil charge device includes a carriage and a transmitting coil positioned on the carriage. The linear track extends across a designated path. The coil charge device is positioned on and moveable along the linear track. The linear motor is operable to move the coil charge device along the linear track. The charge control module controls a position of the coil charge device along the designated path via the linear motor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 19, 2018
    Assignees: DENSO International America, Inc., The Regents of The University of Michigan
    Inventors: Wei Zhang, Jeff C. White, Chris Mi
  • Patent number: 9789777
    Abstract: A double-sided LCC compensation network and a tuning method are proposed for a wireless power transfer system. With the proposed topology, the resonant frequency is independent of coupling coefficient and load conditions. The parameter values are tuned to realize zero voltage switching (ZVS) for the sending side switches. A wireless charging system with up to 7.7 kW output power was designed and built using the proposed topology and achieved 96% efficiency from DC power source to battery load.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2017
    Assignee: THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Junjun Deng, Trong-Duy Nguyen, Weihan Li, Siqi Li
  • Publication number: 20170274788
    Abstract: A wireless charging system may be used to charge a battery in a vehicle via a receiving coil. The wireless charging system may include a coil charge device, a linear track, a linear motor, and a charge control module. The coil charge device includes a carriage and a transmitting coil positioned on the carriage. The linear track extends across a designated path. The coil charge device is positioned on and moveable along the linear track. The linear motor is operable to move the coil charge device along the linear track. The charge control module controls a position of the coil charge device along the designated path via the linear motor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2016
    Publication date: September 28, 2017
    Inventors: Wei ZHANG, Jeff C. WHITE, Chris MI
  • Patent number: 9559581
    Abstract: A bidirectional AC-DC converter is presented with reduced passive component size and common mode electro-magnetic interference. The converter includes an improved input stage formed by two coupled differential inductors, two coupled common and differential inductors, one differential capacitor and two common mode capacitors. With this input structure, the volume, weight and cost of the input stage can be reduced greatly. Additionally, the input current ripple and common mode electro-magnetic interference can be greatly attenuated, so lower switching frequency can be adopted to achieve higher efficiency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2017
    Assignee: The Regents of the University of Michigan
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Siqi Li
  • Patent number: 9496746
    Abstract: A wireless power transmission system is provided for high power applications. The power transmission system is comprised generally of a charging unit configured to generate an alternating electromagnetic field and a receive unit configured to receive the alternating electromagnetic field from the charging unit. The charging unit includes a power source; an input rectifier; an inverter; and a transmit coil. The transmit coil has a spirangle arrangement segmented into n coil segments with capacitors interconnecting adjacent coil segments. The receive unit includes a receive coil and an output rectifier. The receive coil also has a spirangle arrangement segmented into m coil segments with capacitors interconnecting adjacent coil segments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2016
    Assignee: The Regents Of The University Of Michigan
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Siqi Li, Trong-Duy Nguyen, Junhua Wang, Jiangui Li, Weihan Li, Jun Xu
  • Publication number: 20160294217
    Abstract: A double-sided LCLC-compensated network is proposed for a capacitive power transfer (CPT) system. In one design, four metal plates are used to form two power transmitting and receiving capacitors and the LCLC network is used to compensate the capacitors. In the second design, two extra metal plates are used to couple with the previous four plates at the transmitting and receiving side, respectively, which forms the capacitor-integrated structure. The circuit parameter values are tuned to achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS) of the input side switches. There is also a CLLC topology proposed, which is a similar variation of LCLC circuit. A 3.3 kW input power capacitive power transfer prototype is designed and built. The experiment results show that the proposed CPT system can transfer 3.1 kW output power through an air gap distance of 70 mm with a dc-to-dc efficiency of 92.1%.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 1, 2016
    Publication date: October 6, 2016
    Inventors: Chris MI, Hua ZHANG, Fei LU
  • Publication number: 20150015197
    Abstract: A double-sided LCC compensation network and a tuning method are proposed for a wireless power transfer system. With the proposed topology, the resonant frequency is independent of coupling coefficient and load conditions. The parameter values are tuned to realize zero voltage switching (ZVS) for the sending side switches. A wireless charging system with up to 7.7 kW output power was designed and built using the proposed topology and achieved 96% efficiency from DC power source to battery load.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 10, 2014
    Publication date: January 15, 2015
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Junjun Deng, Trong-Duy Nguyen, Weihan Li, Siqi Li
  • Publication number: 20140340031
    Abstract: A wireless power transmission system is provided for high power applications. The power transmission system is comprised generally of a charging unit configured to generate an alternating electromagnetic field and a receive unit configured to receive the alternating electromagnetic field from the charging unit. The charging unit includes a power source; an input rectifier; an inverter; and a transmit coil. The transmit coil has a spirangle arrangement segmented into n coil segments with capacitors interconnecting adjacent coil segments. The receive unit includes a receive coil and an output rectifier. The receive coil also has a spirangle arrangement segmented into m coil segments with capacitors interconnecting adjacent coil segments.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 14, 2014
    Publication date: November 20, 2014
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Siqi Li, Trong-Duy Nguyen, Junhua Wang, Jiangui Li, Weihan Li, Jun Xu
  • Publication number: 20140313795
    Abstract: A bidirectional AC-DC converter is presented with reduced passive component size and common mode electro-magnetic interference. The converter includes an improved input stage formed by two coupled differential inductors, two coupled common and differential inductors, one differential capacitor and two common mode capacitors. With this input structure, the volume, weight and cost of the input stage can be reduced greatly. Additionally, the input current ripple and common mode electro-magnetic interference can be greatly attenuated, so lower switching frequency can be adopted to achieve higher efficiency.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 11, 2014
    Publication date: October 23, 2014
    Applicant: The Regents of The University of Michigan
    Inventors: Chris Mi, Siqi Li