Patents by Inventor Akinori Hiramatu

Akinori Hiramatu 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: 20120098450
    Abstract: There is provided a lighting device usable in a space together with 3D glasses having shutters which alternately block respective translucent surfaces of a pair of lenses at one of a plurality of shutter frequencies. The lighting device includes: a lighting unit which outputs a direct current to a light source; and a dimming control unit which turns on/off supply of the direct current to the light source at a predetermined PWM frequency. Further, the PWM frequency is an integer multiple of the least common multiple of the plurality of shutter frequencies.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 20, 2011
    Publication date: April 26, 2012
    Applicant: Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Sana Esaki, Akinori Hiramatu
  • Publication number: 20120098453
    Abstract: A lighting device includes: a lighting unit which outputs a direct current; a smoothing unit having a capacitor which smoothes the direct current outputted from the lighting unit and supplies it; and a control unit for performing an intermittent control which alternately repeats a first time period in which the direct current is supplied to the smoothing unit and a second time period in which the direct current decreases to be smaller than that in the first time period. In the lighting device, a product of a frequency (Hz) and a capacitance (?F) of the capacitor is equal to or greater than 0.05 in which one cycle of the frequency corresponds to a sum of the first time period and the second time period.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 20, 2011
    Publication date: April 26, 2012
    Applicant: Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Sana ESAKI, Akinori Hiramatu
  • Publication number: 20120019714
    Abstract: A lighting device is provided for lighting control of an LED module based on an externally provided dimming control signal. A chopper circuit includes a switch coupled across a DC input and an inductor which receives and stores energy when the switch is turned on, and discharges energy to the LED module when the switch is turned off. A control circuit determines a current value to the switch, and compares the current value to a predetermined value. During normal operation, the switch is turned off when the detected current value reaches the predetermined value and turned back on when inductor discharge has completed. During a dimming operation, the normal operation is intermittently disabled in accordance with the dimming control signal. The dimming control signal may be a low-frequency PWM signal, with the lighting output being dimmed as a result of a duty ratio of the PWM signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 20, 2011
    Publication date: January 26, 2012
    Inventors: AKINORI HIRAMATU, HIROMITSU MIZUKAWA
  • Publication number: 20110248647
    Abstract: A lighting device reliably detects a status (i.e., existence or absence) of a load connection, and enables or disables power output based on the detected load connection status. The device includes a DC-DC converter having input and output terminals, and a DC current conducting element coupled across the output terminals. A load terminal is also coupled across the output terminals and configured to receive an LED unit. A load detection circuit coupled between an input terminal and the load terminal detects the connection status of an LED unit via a DC current passing through the load terminal, and controls a switching operation of the DC-DC converter based on the detected connection status. A diode coupled between the load terminal and the DC current conducting element blocks a DC current path from the input terminals to the load detection circuit through the DC current conducting element.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 8, 2011
    Publication date: October 13, 2011
    Inventors: Akinori Hiramatu, Hiromitsu Mizukawa, Yoshifumi Kuroki