Patents Assigned to Control Technology
  • Patent number: 10823032
    Abstract: An automotive vehicle includes an exhaust aftertreatment system. The exhaust aftertreatment system includes a mixer, a doser that injects a reducing agent into the mixer, and a selective catalytic reduction unit. The exhaust aftertreatment system mixes exhaust gases and the reducing agent for treatment prior to the exhaust gases being discharged into the atmosphere. Some components of the exhaust aftertreatment system are positioned proximate to an associated combustion engine to minimize thermal energy loss from the exhaust gases prior to interaction with the exhaust aftertreatment system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Faurecia Emissions Control Technologies, USA, LLC
    Inventors: Robin H. Willats, Adam Mathews, John Rohde, Alfred N. Tucker
  • Patent number: 10823440
    Abstract: A control system for an HVAC system. The control system includes a user interface configured to present information to a user and receive inputs from the user. A processor is configured to cause the processor to receive one or more system parameters associated with HVAC system components. The processor is further configured to determine if a maintenance operation is required in response to receiving the one or more system parameters, and to display to the user via the user interface an indication that a maintenance operation is required. The processor is also configured to receive an instruction from the user to initiate the maintenance operation, and to display one or more operational conditions required to be satisfied prior to the maintenance operations being performed. The HVAC components are monitored to determine if the operational conditions are completed, and maintenance instructions are displayed in response to the operational conditions being completed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Theresa N. Gillette, Jedidiah O. Bentz, Shaun B. Atchison, John W. Uerkvitz, Brian D. Rigg, Shawn A. Hern, Tom R. Tasker, Tyler McCune, Aneek Muhammad Noor
  • Publication number: 20200341434
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are related to a system, a method, and a non-transitory computer readable medium for operating an energy plant having a plurality of subplants that operate to produce one or more resources consumed by a building based on ranks. In one aspect, the system obtains rank identifiers indicating ranks of the plurality of subplants. In one aspect, the ranks indicate a priority of each subplant with respect to production of a resource relative to other subplants that produce the resource. In one aspect, the system determines resource allocation of the plurality of subplants according to the ranks of the plurality of subplants. The system may operate the plurality of subplants according to the resource allocation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 25, 2019
    Publication date: October 29, 2020
    Applicant: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Ryan C. Beaty, Graeme Willmott, Jared W. Fread, Shawn A. Schlagenhaft
  • Patent number: 10816079
    Abstract: A gear train is contained within the housing of an actuator, is coupled to a movable component outside the housing, and includes a first gear and a second gear. A bend shaft is fixed to an internal surface of the housing and supports the first and second gears. The bend shaft includes a lower portion, a crosspiece, and an upper portion. The lower portion has a first end coupled to the housing and a second end offset from the first end, and extends from the first end to the second end along a first direction. The crosspiece is oriented orthogonal to the first direction and extends from the second end of the lower portion. The upper portion has a third end coupled to the crosspiece and a fourth end offset from the third end, and extends from the third end to the fourth end along the first direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Madan Kumar Kamala Kannan, Ujjain Kumar Bidila, Umamaheshwararao Karukola
  • Patent number: 10816236
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a climate management system that includes a condensate pan configured to collect condensate from a first heat exchanger of the climate management system, a pump fluidly coupled to the condensate pan, and a nozzle fluidly coupled to the pump, wherein the nozzle is configured to receive the condensate from the pump and direct the condensate toward an airflow across a second heat exchanger of the climate management system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Daniel V. Winders, Neelkanth S. Gupte, Vilas G. Pawanarkar, Kirankumar A. Muley
  • Patent number: 10816234
    Abstract: An HVAC system within a building including an HVAC device having an air filter, a number of sensors, and a control device. The control device has a processor that is configured to determine a current air quality metric based on air quality measurements received by the sensor. The control device is further configured to calculate an average air quality metric based on the current air quality metric and a set of previous air quality metrics. The control device is further configured to store the average air quality metric. The control device is further configured to generate an air filter type recommendation based on the average air quality metric.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Michael J. Ajax, Joseph R. Ribbich
  • Patent number: 10816247
    Abstract: A heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) control system. The HVAC control system includes a sensor that detects a refrigerant released from an HVAC system and emits a signal indicative of the detection. The HVAC control system also includes a switch that blocks a flow of electricity to an enclosed space and a controller that receives the signal from the sensor and activates the switch to block the flow of electricity in response to detection of the refrigerant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventor: William F. McQuade
  • Patent number: 10816235
    Abstract: A building energy system includes HVAC equipment, green energy generation, a battery, and a predictive controller. The HVAC equipment provide heating or cooling for a building. The green energy generation collect green energy from a green energy source. The battery stores electric energy including at least a portion of the green energy provided by the green energy generation and grid energy purchased from an energy grid and discharges the stored electric energy for use in powering the HVAC equipment. The predictive controller generates a constraint that defines a total energy consumption of the HVAC equipment at each time step of an optimization period as a summation of multiple source-specific energy components and optimizes the predictive cost function subject to the constraint to determine values for each of the source-specific energy components at each time step of the optimization period.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Robert D. Turney, Nishith R. Patel
  • Publication number: 20200333751
    Abstract: A self-configuring controller includes one or more processors and one or more non-transitory machine readable media storing instructions. When executed by the one or more processors, the instructions cause the one or more processors to receive an output signal from a controlled system or device representative of an operation of the controlled system or device in response to a first perturbed control input perturbed using a first dither signal, estimate a bandwidth of the controlled system or device based on the output signal and the first dither signal, perturb a second control input using a second dither signal based on the bandwidth of the controlled system or device to generate a second perturbed control input, and transmit the second perturbed control input to the controlled system or device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 26, 2020
    Publication date: October 22, 2020
    Applicant: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Timothy I. Salsbury, John M. House
  • Patent number: 10808958
    Abstract: A thermostat includes a housing, a touch-sensitive display configured to display visual media and receive user inputs, and processing electronics configured to operate the touch-sensitive display. The housing includes a base and a display mount. The base includes a top wall, a bottom wall, a front wall connecting the top wall to the bottom wall, a first side wall connecting the top wall to the bottom wall, and a second side wall connecting the top wall to the bottom wall. The top wall, the bottom wall, the first side wall, and the second side wall define an internal volume. The display mount is cantilevered away from the top wall and includes a mounting surface. The display is attached to the mounting surface. The processing electronics are positioned within the interior volume.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 24, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Joseph R. Ribbich, Vinosh C. Diptee, Julio A. Abdala, Claudio Santiago Ribeiro, Charles J. Gaidish, Michael F. Kornacki, John P. Cipolla, Sudhi Sinha, Michael L. Ribbich
  • Patent number: 10809682
    Abstract: A building management system includes a plurality of meters configured to provide data samples of a plurality of points relating to a building and a space hierarchy database configured to store a sibling relationship for each of the points. Each sibling relationship identifies two or more of the points as sibling points. The building management system includes a batch metrics engine configured to receive a first data sample of a first point, access the sibling relationship for the first point to identify one or more sibling points of the first point, aggregate the first data sample with data samples of the sibling points to generate a batch, and calculate an aggregate metric using the first data sample and the other data samples in the batch. The building management system also includes a controller configured to adjust an operation of building equipment based on the aggregate metric.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Jayesh Shirish Patil, Sujit Fulse, Rajesh C. Nayak
  • Patent number: 10812005
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) system that includes a variable speed drive (VSD) configured to supply power to a motor configured to drive a compressor of the HVAC&R system, a rectifier of the VSD configured to receive alternating current (AC) power from an AC power source and convert the AC power to direct current (DC) power, a DC bus of the VSD electrically coupled to the rectifier, an inverter of the VSD electrically coupled to the DC bus, where the inverter is configured to convert the DC power to output AC power, the output AC power has a variable voltage and a variable frequency, and the output AC power is directed to the motor, and a battery electrically coupled to the DC bus, where the battery is configured to provide auxiliary DC power to the VSD.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: William L. Kopko, Israel Federman, Jay A. Kohler, Ivan Jadric
  • Patent number: 10809676
    Abstract: A heating, ventilation, or air conditioning (HVAC) system for a building includes indoor subsystems, a high-level controller, and low-level controllers. Each indoor subsystem includes one or more indoor units configured to provide heating or cooling to one or more building spaces. The high-level controller generates a plurality of indoor subsystem energy targets, each indoor subsystem energy target corresponding to one of the plurality of indoor subsystems and generated based on a thermal capacitance of one or more building spaces to which heating or cooling is provided by the corresponding indoor subsystem. Each low-level indoor controller corresponds to one of the indoor subsystems and generates indoor setpoints for the one or more indoor units of the corresponding indoor subsystem using the indoor subsystem energy target for the corresponding indoor subsystem and operates the one or more indoor units of the corresponding indoor subsystem using the indoor setpoints.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Nishith R. Patel, Matthew J. Ellis, Michael J. Wenzel, Robert D. Turney, Brett M. Lenhardt
  • Patent number: 10809705
    Abstract: A central plant control system configured to serve one or more energy loads in a building comprises equipment configured to consume, produce, or store one or more resources including electricity, water, natural gas, steam, hot thermal energy, cold thermal energy, or electrical energy. The central plant control system further comprises an asset allocator configured to receive an input model that describes a physical layout of the equipment of the central plant and create a net list that defines connections between the equipment of the central plant using the input model. The asset allocator is further configured to discover one or more systems of interconnected equipment and one or more groups of equipment using the net list, formulate an optimization problem for the central plant using the systems and groups of equipment, and operate the equipment of the central plant according to the optimization problem.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventor: Andrew J. Przybylski
  • Patent number: 10808963
    Abstract: A sensor device including a housing and a number of sensors. The housing includes a back plate including a mounting surface, a middle plate attached to the back plate, and a face plate attached to the middle plate, wherein the face plate is formed from a clear material and has a back surface and a front surface with the back surface positioned toward the middle plate and wherein a design is applied to the back surface of the face plate and is visible through the front surface of the face plate. The housing defines an interior housing volume and the number of sensors is positioned within the interior housing volume.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Daniel J. Spors, Daniel R. Hjortland
  • Patent number: 10808950
    Abstract: A heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) unit includes a filter track assembly that includes a bulkhead frame, a first rail configured to support a first air filter, and a second rail configured to support a second air filter. The first rail and the second rail are coupled to the bulkhead frame, and the first rail and the second rail are disposed on opposing sides of the bulkhead frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Vinay Nanjappa, Nitin C. Dabade, Vishal S. Jagtap, Prashanti S. Dhawan, Marcel P. Ferrere, Rajiv K. Karkhanis, Curtis W. Caskey
  • Patent number: 10809675
    Abstract: A building HVAC system includes an airside system having a plurality of airside subsystems, a high-level controller, and a plurality of low-level airside controllers. Each airside subsystem includes airside HVAC equipment configured to provide heating or cooling to one or more building spaces. The high-level controller is configured to generate a plurality of airside subsystem energy targets, each airside subsystem energy target corresponding to one of the plurality of airside subsystems and generated based on a thermal capacitance of the one or more building spaces to which heating or cooling is provided by the corresponding airside subsystem. Each low-level airside controller corresponds to one of the airside subsystems and is configured to control the airside HVAC equipment of the corresponding airside subsystem in accordance with the airside subsystem energy target for the corresponding airside subsystem.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Nishith R. Patel, Robert D. Turney, Matthew J. Ellis
  • Publication number: 20200326676
    Abstract: A self-optimizing controller for equipment of a plant provides a manipulated variable as an input to the plant and receives an output variable as feedback. The controller generates a performance variable model defining the performance variable as a function of the manipulated variable and an output variable model defining the output variable as a function of the manipulated variable. The controller uses the performance variable model to determine a gradient of the performance variable, uses the output variable model to determine a gradient of the output variable, and generates a self-optimizing variable based on the gradient of the performance variable model and the gradient of the output variable model. The controller operates the equipment of the plant to affect a variable state or condition of the building based on the value of the self-optimizing variable from the self-optimizing variable model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 11, 2019
    Publication date: October 15, 2020
    Applicant: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Carlos Felipe Alcala Perez, Timothy I. Salsbury, John M. House
  • Publication number: 20200326677
    Abstract: A sensory communication device for a building space includes a housing, a plug structure attached to the housing, insertable into an electrical outlet to receive power from the electrical outlet, and capable of supporting the housing when inserted into the electrical outlet, sensors located partially within the housing and capable of measuring environmental variables within a building space, a wireless radio that transmits measurements of the environmental variables, and electrical outlets located on an external surface of the housing and electrically connected to the plug structure to provide power to external devices.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 11, 2019
    Publication date: October 15, 2020
    Applicant: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: TIMOTHY C. GAMROTH, JOSEPH PICCOLO, III, AVICHAL CHUM
  • Publication number: 20200326666
    Abstract: A building management system includes building equipment configured to operate in accordance with an input to alter a variable state or condition of a building, a feedback controller configured to generate the input as a function of a measured state of the building equipment, and an analytics circuit. The analytics circuit is configured to obtain and store a dataset comprising the measured state and the input for a plurality of time steps, determine, based on at least a portion of the dataset, a self-optimizing control function that defines a self-optimizing control variable as a function of the measured state, calculate a value of the self-optimizing control variable using the self-optimizing control function and the measured state, monitor the value of the self-optimizing control variable over time, and generate an indication of performance of the building equipment relative to optimal performance based on the value of the self-optimizing control variable.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 9, 2019
    Publication date: October 15, 2020
    Applicant: Johnson Controls Technology Company
    Inventors: Timothy I. Salsbury, Carlos Felipe Alcala Perez, John M. House