Patents by Inventor Erick James Rickards

Erick James Rickards 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).

  • Patent number: 9506453
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided for actuating less than all of a plurality of load management devices on a wind turbine and/or a wind turbine blade. In some embodiments, the actuation sequences may be a root-to-tip, tip-to root, maximum-distributed-load, random, and/or a cycle-count actuation sequence. Further, a combination of two or more actuation sequences may be utilized to achieve a desired result. The system may choose an appropriate blade-based and/or rotor-based actuation sequence according to operating conditions, may alternate actuation sequences, and/or may employ different actuation sequences among the plurality of blades of a wind turbine. The load management devices may be actuated to different maximum heights and/or may be configured to be actuated to variable heights. The load management devices may be included as part of a distributed management system providing a corresponding controller and/or sensor at each load management device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Inventors: Jonathon Paul Baker, Jeffrey Austin Butterworth, Jehan Zeb Khan, Guojian Lin, Edward Anthony Mayda, Erick James Rickards, Tobias Guenther Wehrhan