Patents Examined by Fred E Finch, III
  • Patent number: 12155195
    Abstract: To provide improved overvoltage protection for a voltage converter for converting an input voltage into a DC output voltage, a first switch-off unit is provided, which is configured to effect a switch-off of at least a part of the voltage converter if the DC output voltage reaches or exceeds a first voltage threshold, in order to reduce the DC output voltage. Furthermore, a second switch-off unit is provided, which is configured to check whether a mean value of the DC output voltage reaches or exceeds a mean value threshold and, if the mean value threshold is reached or exceeded, to effect a switch-off of at least a part of the voltage converter in order to reduce the DC output voltage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2024
    Assignee: B&R INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION GMBH
    Inventors: Sebastian Blume, Thomas Schiemer, Tim Huber, Djordje Vukovic
  • Patent number: 12155316
    Abstract: A control circuit for an isolated power supply is disclosed, the control circuit includes a secondary-side drive signal generator, a secondary-side transistor switch turn-off detector and a primary-side control signal generator. The primary-side control signal generator is configured to: determine a second turn-on instant referring to an turn-off instant of the secondary-side synchronous rectification transistor from the turn-off acknowledgement signal; determine a first turn-on instant referring to a supposed turn-on instant for the primary-side transistor switch from the feedback signal of the output voltage of the isolated power supply; and determine the turn-on instant for the primary-side transistor switch from the second turn-on instant or the first turn-on instant whichever is later, and responsively generate the primary-side transistor switch control signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2024
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2024
    Assignee: SHANGHAI BRIGHT POWER SEMICONDUCTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Yanmei Guo, Zhen Zhu, Yihui Chen, Yuehui Li, Xiaoru Gao, Haifeng Miao, Hanfei Yang
  • Patent number: 12149156
    Abstract: A bipole power transmission scheme includes at least a first converter station that is positioned in-use separate from at least a second converter station, and at least first and second transmission conduits and a first return conduit to in-use interconnect the first converter station with the second converter station and thereby permit the transfer of power between the first and second converter stations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 14, 2023
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2024
    Assignee: GE INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY LLC
    Inventors: Ajay Koliwad, Madhusudan Nandula, Neil Cuthbert, Markus Andre Offergeld
  • Patent number: 12142911
    Abstract: A bipole power transmission scheme typically includes a first converter station that is positioned remote from a second converter station, along with first and second transmission conduits which interconnect the first and second converter stations to permit the transmission of power between the first and second converter stations. The first converter station has first and second power converters, with the first power converter including a first DC terminal that is connected with the first transmission conduit, at least one AC terminal which is connected with a first AC network, and a second DC terminal that is interconnected with a third DC terminal of the second power converter by a first interconnection which defines a first neutral area. The second power converter additionally includes a fourth DC terminal that is connected with the second transmission conduit and at least one AC terminal which is connected with a second AC network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 12, 2024
    Assignee: GE INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY LLC
    Inventors: Amit Kumar, Ossama El Sanharawi
  • Patent number: 12143024
    Abstract: Proposed is a method for accurately predicting an overcurrent flowing inside an isolated bidirectional DC-DC converter even without using a current sensor on primary and secondary sides of a transformer. In the converter according to the present disclosure, an average value of the inductor current is calculated after deriving inflection point current values by respectively modeling a current waveform for an inductor current of the transformer. A secondary side output current average value is calculated by comparing the calculated average value of the inductor current with a secondary side capacitor current average value of the converter at no load. Next, an error between the secondary side output current average value and an actually measured secondary side output current is calculated, and the inflection point current values of the current waveform are updated using a gain for reducing the error through PI control, whereby the overcurrent may be predicted.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 12, 2024
    Assignee: HYOSUNG Corporation
    Inventors: Byung Hwan Jeong, Byeng Joo Byen, Joo Yeon Lee
  • Patent number: 12132414
    Abstract: A power supply that supplies power to a capacitive load comprises: a converter; an inverter; a resonant transformer; a detector configured to detect output frequency or output current and output voltage; and a controller configured to control the inverter, wherein the controller is configured to: calculate output power; adjust the output frequency within a predetermined frequency search range, adjust the output voltage within a predetermined voltage search range, and specify, as a frequency target value, a minimum value of the output frequency with which the output power reaches predetermined output power; and control the inverter so that the output frequency will be the frequency target value, adjust the output voltage within the predetermined voltage search range, and specify, as a voltage target value, a value of the output voltage with which the output power is target output power.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2024
    Assignee: METAWATER Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazuya Takahashi, Souichirou Yamamoto, Kyohei Yamamoto, Yoshitaka Yonetani
  • Patent number: 12119752
    Abstract: In order to balance the thermal stress of the switches (S1-S4) of the two legs of an inverter full bridge (4), the driving signals are generated using an up-down counter having a modulation period Tmod of twice the period T of the input voltage (Vin). The up-down counter has a first compare value (41) of D/4 and a second compare value (42) of (2+D)/4, where D is the duty cycle and where the second half bridge is phase shifted by the period T.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2024
    Assignee: Delta Electronics (Thailand) Public Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Philipp Rehlaender, Joachim Böcker, Roland Unruh, Frank Schafmeister
  • Patent number: 12119737
    Abstract: A method for controlling an electrical converter system is provided herein. The method includes determining a switching signal and a reference trajectory of at least one electrical quantity of the electrical converter system over a horizon of future sampling instants; generating a sequence of averaged switch positions from the switching signal over the horizon; determining a sequence of optimized averaged switch positions with optimized averaged switch positions by optimizing a cost function based on the sequence of averaged switch positions; determining an optimized switching signal for the current sampling interval by moving switching transitions in the switching signal, such that the average of the switching signal with the modified switching transitions equals the optimized averaged switch position; and applying at least the next switching transition of the optimized switching signal for the current sampling interval to the electrical converter system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2024
    Assignee: ABB Schweiz AG
    Inventors: Tobias Geyer, Annika Birth
  • Patent number: 12113456
    Abstract: Embodiments of present disclosure relate to an apparatus and a method for controlling a delta-connected cascaded multilevel converter. The apparatus (100) for controlling a delta-connected cascaded multilevel converter (110) comprises: a converter controller (102) configured to: receive current signals indicating phase currents flowing through respective phase arms of the converter (110); determine a harmonic current signal indicating a circulating current of the converter (110) from the current signals; and generate, based on the determined harmonic current signal and a reference current signal, a harmonic voltage signal to cause an amplitude of the circulating current flowing through the phase arms of the converter (110) to be a predetermined amplitude.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2024
    Assignee: ABB SCHWEIZ AG
    Inventors: Xing Huang, Hailian Xie, Guangming Pei, Hua Wei, Min Li
  • Patent number: 12113431
    Abstract: Disclosed is a flying capacitor three-level converter, including a plurality of circuit units, wherein each of the plurality of circuit units includes: an input capacitor; a bridge arm, electrically connected with the input capacitor in parallel, wherein the bridge arm includes a first switch, a second switch, a third switch and a fourth switch electrically and sequentially connected in series; and a flying capacitor unit, wherein the flying capacitor unit includes a first capacitor and a second capacitor, and the first capacitor and the second capacitor are electrically connected in parallel and electrically connected with a series branch in parallel, and the series branch includes the second switch and the third switch; wherein the input capacitor, the first switch, the first capacitor and the fourth switch form a first switching loop, and the second capacitor, the second switch and the third switch form a second switching loop.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2024
    Assignee: Delta Electronics (Shanghai) CO., LTD
    Inventors: Guoqiao Shen, Jinfa Zhang
  • Patent number: 12113439
    Abstract: An adjustable voltage regulator circuit, including a voltage conversion circuit, a voltage conversion controller, and a clock generator, is provided. The voltage conversion circuit receives an input voltage to generate an output voltage. The voltage conversion controller detects the output voltage, compares the output voltage with a reference voltage value, and outputs an enable signal based on a comparison result to control the voltage conversion circuit to adjust the output voltage. The clock generator generates a first clock signal and a second clock signal to respectively drive the voltage conversion circuit and the voltage conversion controller. The voltage conversion controller adjusts the enable signal to gradually adjust the output voltage to a predetermined voltage range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2024
    Assignee: National Taiwan University
    Inventors: Bing-Chen Wu, Tsung-Te Liu
  • Patent number: 12113443
    Abstract: A multi-converter power supply system includes a plurality of cell converters, a common node to which an individual output terminal of each of the plurality of cell converters is connected, a current waveform signal generation circuit that generates a current waveform signal corresponding to a current waveform flowing through an individual inductor, a current average signal generation circuit that generates a current average signal by averaging temporal changes that the current waveform signal has in a switching period of a switching control circuit, and an instrumentation amplifier that receives input of a current common signal obtained from the common node and the current average signal and that generates an individual current feedback signal to be fed back to the switching control circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2024
    Assignee: Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Tatsuya Hosotani, Norikazu Sakamoto
  • Patent number: 12107419
    Abstract: There is provided a switching valve for a voltage source converter, the switching valve including a number of modules, each module including at least one switching element and at least one energy storage device, the or each switching element and the or each energy storage device in each module arranged to be combinable to selectively provide a voltage source, the switching valve including a controller programmed to selectively control the switching of the switching elements to select one or more of the modules to contribute a or a respective voltage to a switching valve voltage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 18, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2024
    Assignee: GE INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY LLC
    Inventors: Pablo Briff, Carl Barker, Omar Jasim, Jose Augusto Monteiro
  • Patent number: 12107503
    Abstract: A multi-stage buck converter is provided. The multi-stage buck converter includes a capacitor string, a power switch module and a power conversion module. The capacitor string includes N capacitors connected in series. The power switch module is coupled to the capacitor string and includes N power switch groups. The power conversion module is coupled to the power switch module and includes an energy storage element. Wherein a working frequency of the power conversion module is equal to N times of the switching frequency of each of the N power switch groups, and N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 2. Wherein the working frequency is the number of times of the energy storage element that completes charging and discharging in a unit time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2024
    Assignee: INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
    Inventor: Wen-Tien Tsai
  • Patent number: 12107506
    Abstract: A power supply apparatus includes a transformer including a primary coil, a secondary coil, and an auxiliary coil; a switching element connected in series to the primary coil; a first rectifying/smoothing circuit including a first diode and a first capacitor and configured to rectify and smooth a voltage induced in the auxiliary coil; a second rectifying/smoothing circuit including a second diode and a second capacitor, connected in parallel with the first rectifying/smoothing circuit, and configured to rectify and smooth the voltage induced in the auxiliary coil; and a controller configured to control the switching element. The controller is configured to detect the voltage induced in the auxiliary coil based on an output voltage of the first rectifying/smoothing circuit. A responsiveness of the second diode is better than a responsiveness of the first diode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2024
    Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Mitsunori Oshima, Junya Kobayashi, Masaki Inagaki
  • Patent number: 12095372
    Abstract: A voltage converter includes a converter module to convert an input voltage to an output voltage, a current sharing terminal to be connected in parallel with a current sharing terminal of each of at least one other voltage converter, and a control circuit to generate a first voltage signal proportional to an output current of the converter module with an adjustable first proportional coefficient and output the first voltage signal to the current sharing terminal, generate a first current signal proportional to a second voltage signal at the current sharing terminal with a second proportional coefficient, subtract the output current of the converter module from the first current signal to generate an error current signal, and adjust the output voltage of the converter module based on the error current signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2024
    Assignee: MURATA MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Chukhung Chan, Chuipong Liu
  • Patent number: 12095381
    Abstract: A bidirectional AC power converter, having a front-end comprising parallel sets of three switches in series, which connects multi-phase AC to coupling transformer through a first set of tank circuits, for synchronously bidirectionally converting electrical power between the multi-phase AC and a DC potential, and for converting electrical power between the DC potential to a bipolar electrical signal at a switching frequency, controlled such that two of each parallel set of three switches in series are soft-switched and the other switch is semi-soft switched; the coupling transformer being configured to pass the bipolar electrical power at the switching frequency through a second set of the tank circuits to a synchronous converter, which in turn transfers the electrical power to a secondary system at a frequency different from the switching frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 15, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2024
    Assignee: The Research Foundation for The State University of New York
    Inventors: Kalyan Yenduri, Sunil Dube, Pritam Das
  • Patent number: 12095366
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a controller includes an error circuit configured to receive a clamping voltage and a feedback signal, the error circuit configured to generate a regulation reference signal based on the clamping voltage and the feedback signal, a PWM circuit configured to receive the regulation reference signal and a current sense signal, the PWM circuit configured to generate a limit signal or a regulation signal based on the regulation reference signal and the current sense signal, a clamp circuit configured to increase a magnitude of the clamping voltage in response to the regulation signal being an active state and decrease the magnitude of the clamping voltage in response to the limit signal being the active state, and a drive circuit configured to generate a drive signal for regulating the output current in response to at least one of the limit signal or the regulation signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2024
    Assignee: SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC
    Inventor: Jan Plojhar
  • Patent number: 12088197
    Abstract: An electronic circuit includes a common mode choke coil (CMCC), a first capacitor and a second capacitor as a pair of line bypass capacitors, and a DC-DC converter coupled to a power line and also to a ground line coupled to a ground of a substrate. The first capacitor is coupled to the power line between the CMCC and the DC-DC converter. The first capacitor is coupled between the power line and a metal housing. The second capacitor is coupled to the ground line between the CMCC and the DC-DC converter. The second capacitor is coupled between the ground line and the metal housing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2024
    Assignee: Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Hiroyuki Takatsuji
  • Patent number: 12088200
    Abstract: This application discloses a boost power conversion circuit, a method, an inverter, an apparatus, and a system. In the conversion circuit, a voltage control circuit is added on a three-level boost. The voltage control circuit can be connected in series in a third closed loop, and the third closed loop is a loop including an inductor, a first switching transistor, a flying capacitor, a second diode, and an input end. The voltage control circuit clamps a voltage of a common point of the first diode and the second diode when a voltage on an input end of the boost power conversion circuit is less than a startup voltage of the boost power conversion circuit. The voltage borne by the second diode is reduced, so that a diode with relatively small voltage stress can be selected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2024
    Assignee: Huawei Digital Power Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Tao Shi, Jixin Zhu