Patents Examined by Vincent Q. Nguyen
  • Patent number: 11584254
    Abstract: In an aspect a system for energy tracking in an electric aircraft. A system includes at least a battery pack. At least a battery pack includes a plurality of battery modules. A system includes a sensing device. A sensing device is configured to detect a battery parameter of at least a battery module of a plurality of battery modules. A sensing device is configured to generate battery data as a function of a detected battery parameter of at least a battery module. A system includes a computing device. A computing device is in electronic communication with a sensing device. A computing device is configured to receive battery data from a sensing device. A computing device is configured to determine an energy amount of a plurality of battery packs as a function of battery data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2022
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2023
    Assignee: BETA AIR, LLC
    Inventor: Steven J. Foland
  • Patent number: 11581206
    Abstract: Embodiments disclosed herein comprise a sensor. In an embodiment, the sensor comprises a substrate having a first surface and a second surface opposite from the first surface. In an embodiment, the sensor further comprises a first electrode over the first surface of the substrate, and a second electrode over the first surface of the substrate and adjacent to the first electrode. In an embodiment, the sensor further comprises a barrier layer over the first electrode and the second electrode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2023
    Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc.
    Inventors: Yaoling Pan, Patrick John Tae, Leonard Tedeschi, Jennifer Sun, Philip Allan Kraus, Xiaopu Li, Kallol Bera, Michael D. Willwerth, Albert Barrett Hicks, III, Lisa J. Enman, Mark Joseph Saly, Daniel Thomas McCormick
  • Patent number: 11567144
    Abstract: A ground fault detection device connected to a high-voltage battery and a positive electrode side Y capacitor includes a detection capacitor operating as a flying capacitor and a discharge circuit including at least a fifth switch. A one end of the discharge circuit is connected to a first circuit that connects a positive electrode side of the high-voltage battery and a one end of the detection capacitor. An another end of the discharge circuit is connected to a second circuit that connects an another end of the detection capacitor and a ground.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Hiroyuki Yamaguchi
  • Patent number: 11567152
    Abstract: A head coil assembly includes a housing with a lower portion, an upper portion, a left portion, and a right portion, wherein each portion includes two or more radio-frequency (RF) coils, wherein the portions are sized and shaped to adjustably conform to a curvature of the subject's head for magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the subject's head placed inside the housing, wherein the portions are operable to transition from an open position where the portions are sufficiently apart from each other to a closed position where the portions are adjusted to tighten a wrap around the subject's head along the curvature, and wherein the two or more RF coils in each portion are disposed in such manner that when the portions are operated to transition from the open position to the closed position, the RF coils of each portion remain decoupled to each other even along edges of each portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Inventors: Ian Robert Oliphant Connell, Gilbert Thevathasan, William Wai-Leung Lau, Alexander Gyles Panther
  • Patent number: 11567138
    Abstract: A method for testing a capacity of a drive rescue battery includes opening a first switching device and second switching device to disconnect a LCL filter from AC mains and form a test load for testing the capacity of the drive rescue battery while disconnecting one of the LCL filter capacitors associated with a third phase from the test load, the test load including a series connection from one of the downstream LCL filter inductors and the LCL filter capacitors associated with the first phase to one of the LCL filter capacitors and the downstream LCL filter inductors associated with the second phase; and determining at least one of a voltage or a current of the drive rescue battery resulting from the test load.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: Kone Corporation
    Inventors: Teppo Vuorio, Juhamatti Nikander
  • Patent number: 11567134
    Abstract: A system and method for monitoring characteristics of an electric energy device includes generating an external short from the electric energy device. The external short occurs at a known distance from a sensor and has at least one known external resistance. The received signal representing change in electromagnetic field due to the applied external short may be analyzed to determine a signal parameter that is then analyzed in comparison to a lookup table, based on the known conditions including distance, temperature and the external resistance. The output of this analyses in comparison with expected values may be utilized to identify a characteristic of the energy device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: California Institute of Technology
    Inventors: Farshid Roumi, Mahshid Roumi
  • Patent number: 11567145
    Abstract: A battery management system (BMS) for early detection of a battery cell internal short-circuit. The BMS includes a memory, one or more processing units, and a machine-readable medium on the memory. The machine-readable medium stores instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing units, cause the BMS to perform numerous operations of a method for early detection of the battery cell internal short-circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: The Boeing Company
    Inventor: Shengyi Liu
  • Patent number: 11567137
    Abstract: Provided are a battery management system, a battery management method, a battery pack and an electric vehicle. The battery management system includes a sensing unit to generate battery information indicating a current, a voltage and a temperature of a battery, and a control unit. The control unit determines a temporary estimate for a SOC in a current cycle using a time update process of an extended Kalman filter based on a previous estimate indicating a SOC in a previous cycle and the battery information. The control unit determines open circuit voltage (OCV) information based on the temporary estimate. The control unit determines a definitive estimate indicating the SOC in the current cycle using a measurement update process of the extended Kalman filter based on the temporary estimate, the OCV information and the battery information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 7, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: LG ENERGY SOLUTION, LTD.
    Inventor: Young-Jin Kim
  • Patent number: 11565739
    Abstract: A self-standing sandwich structure includes at least one capacitive sensor member and/or at least one heater member for automotive vehicle application. The self-standing sandwich structure includes an upper protective layer that is attached, for manufacturing and storage purposes, to a carrier film member of sufficiently low surface energy for enabling separating the carrier film member and the upper protective layer in a non-destructive manner, a lower protective layer, a bottom adhesive layer that is attached to the lower protective layer, and at least an upper electrically conductive layer arranged between the upper protective layer and the lower protective layer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: IEE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONICS & ENGINEERING S.A.
    Inventors: Driss Chabach, Cedric Amorosi, Alain Schumacher, Julie Distel, Raphaël Bennes
  • Patent number: 11567141
    Abstract: A battery pack according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may include a plurality of battery cells and a BMS for controlling the battery pack. The BMS may include a state-of-charge (SOC) calculation module for calculating a SOC of each of the plurality of battery cells included in the battery pack and a faulty battery cell detection unit for detecting at least one faulty battery cell on the basis of the calculated SOC of each of the plurality of battery cells.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: LG ENERGY SOLUTION, LTD.
    Inventors: An Soo Kim, Dong Keun Kwon, Hyun Chul Lee, Sung Yul Yoon, Seung Hyun Kim, Jae Sung Im
  • Patent number: 11561261
    Abstract: A device for detecting a secondary battery of an uninterruptible power system contains: a main battery module and at least one sub battery module. The main battery module includes a first power storage unit, a first detection unit, a first processing unit, a communication unit, and a first data transmission unit. The first power storage unit includes multiple first battery assemblies connected in series, and a respective first battery assembly has at least one secondary battery. The first detection unit includes multiple first detectors. The first data transmission unit includes a first one-way transmit port and a first two-way transmit port. The sub battery module includes a second power storage unit, a second detection unit, a second processing unit, and a second data transmission unit. The second power storage unit includes multiple second battery assemblies connected in series. The second detection unit includes multiple second detectors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2023
    Inventor: Fu-Chieh Chen
  • Patent number: 11555860
    Abstract: A method for testing a mechanical performance of a lithium ion battery electrode based on a nano-indentation technology includes following steps: connecting an assembled lithium ion battery with an electrochemical test device and setting different test working conditions, so that cyclic charge and discharge experiments are performed on the battery to obtain an attenuation curve of a battery capacity; disassembling the battery and taking out the electrode; scraping some powder from a surface of the cyclic electrode plate and an initial uncyclic electrode plate, and laying down the powder in cold mounting molds separately, pouring the cold mounting solution into the molds; taking out the samples from the molds respectively after the liquid is completely cured and cooled; detecting a mechanical performance after polishing the samples surfaces and analyzing the mechanical performance decay rule of the electrodes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: East China University of Science and Technology
    Inventors: Weiling Luan, Ying Chen, Senming Wu, Haofeng Chen
  • Patent number: 11549992
    Abstract: A Battery Management System (BMS) semiconductor device having a leakage current detection function, may include: a comparator configured to compare a voltage of a balancing terminal connected to a positive voltage terminal of a battery cell and a voltage of a lower sensing terminal connected to a negative voltage terminal of the battery cell and output a result of the comparing; an ADC connected to the upper sensing terminal and the lower sensing terminal and configured to sense a voltage difference between the upper sensing terminal connected to the positive voltage terminal of the battery cell and the lower sensing terminal; and a leakage current determining unit connected to the ADC and the comparator and configured to set a variable threshold value according to the difference value sensed by the ADC and determine whether a leakage current is generated by using the result of the comparing in the comparator and the variable threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: HYUNDAI MOBIS CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Seulkirom Kim
  • Patent number: 11549975
    Abstract: A capacitive sensor includes a switching capacitor circuit, a comparator, and a charge dissipation circuit. The switching capacitor circuit reciprocally couples a sensing capacitor in series with a modulation capacitor during a first switching phase and discharges the sensing capacitor during a second switching phase. The comparator is coupled to compare a voltage potential on the modulation capacitor to a reference and to generate a modulation signal in response. The charge dissipation circuit is coupled to the modulation capacitor to selectively discharge the modulation capacitor in response to the modulation signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
    Inventors: Andriy Ryshtun, Viktor Kremin
  • Patent number: 11530956
    Abstract: A capacitive sensor arrangement includes a sensing electrode having a capacitance (Cx) which depends on the presence of an object in a detection space; a measurement device connected to the sensing electrode and configured to detect the capacitance (Cx) of the sensing electrode; and a conducting structure, wherein the capacitance (Cx) of the sensing electrode depends on a potential of the conducting structure. In order to obtain a reliable capacitive measurement, the measurement device is connected to a power supply between a first potential (Vs) and a second potential (GND), the measurement device being connected to the second potential exclusively via the structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2022
    Assignee: IEE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONICS & ENGINEERING S.A.
    Inventors: Daniel Ferring, Erik Holzapfel, Laurent Lamesch, Jochen Landwehr, Michael Pütz
  • Patent number: 11522543
    Abstract: A vehicle includes a body and a door coupled to the body. The door is operable between opened and closed positions. A cinch assembly is operably coupled to the door. A door seal is positioned along at least a portion of a door opening, wherein the door seal includes a first conductor and a second conductor positioned therein. The first and second conductors are dielectrically isolated and cooperate to generate a capacitive signal. A controller is configured to monitor the capacitive signal and control the cinch assembly in response to the capacitive signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 6, 2022
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Stuart C. Salter, Paul Kenneth Dellock, Kristopher Karl Brown, Fedor Balayev, Cornel Lewis Gardner
  • Patent number: 11512978
    Abstract: Aspects of the present invention include a system and method for differentiating a plurality of objects detected behind an opaque surface, including, a plurality of sensors, controlled by one or more processors, configured to collect in parallel, sensor data of the plurality of objects behind an opaque surface, the one or more processors are configured to analyze the sensor data to identify estimated regions of the plurality of objects behind the opaque surface, the one or more processors are further configured to differentiate the estimated regions of the plurality of objects behind the opaque surface, and, the one or more processors are further configured to inform a user, via a user interface, of the plurality of objects within the estimated regions behind the opaque surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Assignee: Zircon Corporation
    Inventor: John Robert Stauss
  • Patent number: 11513139
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for diagnosing whether a charging and discharging switching element provided on a charging and discharging path of a battery pack operates normally. A charging and discharging switching unit having a charging and discharging switch and a fuse is installed on a charging and discharging path between a battery cell and a pack terminal. The apparatus includes a first diagnosing path a second diagnosing path, a third diagnosing path, an integrated diagnosing path having a diagnosis switching unit and a diagnosis resistor, a voltage measuring unit, and a control unit configured to turn on and off the diagnosis switching unit and determine whether the charging and discharging switching unit is operating abnormally based on the diagnosis voltage measured by the voltage measuring unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Inventors: Jang-Soo Ock, Yeon-Do Park
  • Patent number: 11513158
    Abstract: One or more external connectors of a conformal wearable battery (CWB) may be controlled to reduce a voltage potential supplied to the connectors when exposed to a conductive liquid. The connectors may be uniform serial bus (USB) connectors or other connectors. One or more unused terminals of the one or more connectors may be pulled to a voltage potential and then monitored for a change in voltage. When the change in voltage satisfies a voltage threshold, the voltage potential supplied to the one or more connectors may be reduced and/or interrupted. The change in voltage may be evaluated against the voltage threshold alone or may be evaluated against the voltage threshold and a time threshold relating to a time after the voltage satisfied the voltage threshold. The voltage of the monitored terminal may be evaluated against one or more voltage thresholds and/or one or more time thresholds. Based on the voltage threshold having been met, the voltage supplied to the connector may be reduced or stopped.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 24, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Assignee: Inventus Power, Inc.
    Inventors: Richard E. VanCamp, John Seo, King Moy, Christopher M. Reinke
  • Patent number: 11515583
    Abstract: A method for determining the state of an electric energy storage unit is described. An extension of the electrode assembly and/or a force exerted by the electrode assembly, and at least one electric variable of the electric energy storage unit are detected. A first and a second state variables, which represent the first state of the electric energy storage unit, are ascertained using the detected extension and/or the detected force and also a first mathematical model stored in a data memory and the detected at least one electric variable and also a second mathematical model stored in a data memory. This is followed by carrying out a first comparison of the first state variable with the second state variable. The first and/or the second mathematical model and/or the first and/or the second state variables are/is changed depending on the first comparison.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Assignees: Robert Bosch GmbH, GS Yuasa International Ltd.
    Inventors: Michael Gansemer, Christoph Woll