173results about How to "Extend lifetime of battery pack" patented technology

A method for charging a battery, such as a lithium based battery, which applies different charge pulses and discharge pulses to the battery, takes voltage measurements during those charge pulses, discharge pulses, and rest periods between the charge pulses and discharge pulses, and determines whether to terminate or to continue charging the battery. The full sequence of charge pulses, discharge pulses, and rest periods, includes a plurality of charge pulses (1), separated by rest periods (2) and followed by a rest period (3). This is then followed by a plurality of discharge pulses (4), separated by rest periods (5) and followed by a rest period (6). This is then followed by a plurality of extended charge pulses (7), separated by rest periods (8) and followed by a rest period (9). Then another discharge pulse (10) is applied, followed by a rest period (11). This is followed by a plurality of alternating charge pulses (13) and discharge pulses (12), separated by rest periods (13, 15) and followed by a rest period (16). Then another plurality of discharge pulses (17) is applied, separated by rest periods (18) and followed by a rest period (19). Open circuit voltage measurements taken during the rest periods, loaded circuit voltage measurements taken during the discharge pulses, and charge pulse voltage measurements taken during the charge pulses, are used to determine whether to continue or to terminate the charging of the battery.

Disclosed is an imaging directional backlight polarization recovery apparatus including an imaging directional backlight with at least a polarization sensitive reflection component with optional polarization transformation and redirection elements. Viewing windows may be formed through imaging individual light sources and hence defines the relative positions of system elements and ray paths. The base imaging directional backlight systems provide substantially unpolarized light primarily for the illumination of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) resulting in at least 50% loss in light output when using a conventional sheet polarizer as input to the display. The invention herein introduces a polarization sensitive reflecting element to separate desired and undesired polarization states for the purposes of transformation and redirection of the reflected light for usable illumination. Polarization transformation and redirection can be provided by additional components such as retarder films and specular mirror surfaces.

New thermoelectric materials and devices are disclosed for application to high efficiency thermoelectric power generation. New functional materials based on oxides, rare-earth-oxides, rare-earth-nitrides, rare-earth phosphides, copper-rare-earth oxides, silicon-rare-earth-oxides, germanium-rare-earth-oxides and bismuth rare-earth-oxides are disclosed. Addition of nitrogen and phosphorus are disclosed to optimize the oxide material properties for thermoelectric conversion efficiency. New devices based on bulk and multilayer thermoelectric materials are described. New devices based on bulk and multilayer thermoelectric materials using combinations of at least one of thermoelectric and pyroelectric and ferroelectric materials are described. Thermoelectric devices based on vertical pillar and planar architectures are disclosed. The advantage of the planar thermoelectric effect allows utility for large area applications and is scalable for large scale power generation plants.

A thin film battery comprises a substrate, anode and cathode current collector layers formed over the substrate, anode and cathode layers formed over and in electrical contact with respective ones of the current collector layers, and an electrolyte layer formed between the anode and cathode layers. The thin film battery further comprises a barrier layer formed from a material such as tin oxide, tin phosphate, tin fluorophosphate, chalcogenide glass, tellurite glass or borate glass. The barrier layer is configured to encapsulate the thin film battery layers and substantially inhibit or prevent exposure of the thin film battery layers to air or moisture.

A method is provided for automatically determining the use status of an electronic medical device (e.g., an electronic stethoscope) and/or activating such a device. The method includes providing a patient portion of the device, i.e., one or more portions of the device that, in use, are brought into contact with a patient, with a contact or proximity detector. The detector provides an output signal when the patient portion is proximate to, or in contact with, a portion of a patient. This output signal, after signal processing, is used in determining the use status of the device.

A method of communicating data in a system having a plurality of transmitters each adapted to transmit a radio signal, and a receiver situated at a distance from the transmitters to receive and process the signals transmitted by the transmitters, information for transmission being subdivided into N-bit symbols, the method consisting in:giving a numerical value to each symbol; andcompressing the data using a CHIP encoding technique in which the values of the symbols are transposed to an encoded value having x digits in a base B, each digit subsequently being represented in the form of n chips, the base B, the number n of chips, and the number x of digits for an encoded value satisfying the following conditions: so that the total number of chips x.n representing the coded value is less than 2.N.

An energy buffer including an electrochemical capacitor can be added to the primary circuit and/or to the secondary circuit of in-motion wireless power transfer system. The energy buffer(s) can smoothen the power delivered by the power grid and captured by a vehicle passing over an array of transmit coils through in-motion wireless power transfer. The reduction in the transient power transfer can reduce the peak current that flows through various components of the in-motion wireless power transfer system including a vehicle battery on the vehicle, and prolong the life of the in-motion wireless power transfer system.

Embodiments relate to a method and system for power demand shaping (PDS) so as to manage power generation and use. Specific embodiments relate to data center power demand shaping to achieve high-performance low-overhead data center operation. Specific embodiments can incorporate standard (utility power) energy sources, renewable energy sources, or a combination of standard (utility power) energy sources and renewable energy sources. Embodiments of the subject PDS techniques can incorporate trimming the data center load power so as to allow DG systems to follow the power demand efficiently and/or incorporate two adaptive load tuning schemes that can boost data center performance and enable near-oracle operation during power demand trimming process. To implement a cross-layer power optimization scheme, embodiments of the subject invention relate to a power management module that can reside between front-end distributed generation and back-end computing facilities to provide a coordinated tuning between the supply and load.

A compact, high-efficiency, high-power, solid state light source, comprising a high-power solid state light-emitting device, a light guide having a proximal light-receiving end proximate the light-emitting device and a distal light-transmitting end spaced farther from the light-emitting device, and a mechanical light guide fixing device coupled to the light guide near its proximal end, to hold the proximal end of the light guide in position near the light-emitting device.

A WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) communication device for performing communication in a WLAN network is provided that comprises a physical connection unit, a physical connection oscillator, and a control unit. The physical connection unit is for providing a physical connection of the WLAN communication device to a wireless communication medium. The physical connection oscillator is for providing a physical connection clock signal to the physical connection unit. The control unit is for controlling operation of the physical connection oscillator. The WLAN communication device is operable in a communication mode and in a deep sleep mode. The control unit is adapted to deactivate the physical connection oscillator when the deep sleep mode is entered. Embodiments may provide an extended reduction of the power consumption of the WLAN communication device.

In a wireless communication system, a utilization of a global ID having a long bit length, which is useful for linking with an external system, is compatible with a reduction of a communication amount of a wireless terminal. The wireless terminal transmits the global ID only when the wireless terminal is initially registered, and after a local ID having a short bit length is allocated by a server to the wireless terminal, this wireless terminal uses one the local ID. While the server manages a corresponding relationship between the global ID and the local ID, the server uses the global ID in order to identify the wireless terminal in a communication made outside the system.

This concerns a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) device, or system, or method of operating a BLE device and a respective computer program. The BLE device comprises a transceiver to broadcast the at least one advertising packet, a processor connected to the transceiver to generate the advertising packet and/or to trigger broadcasting thereof according to a broadcasting schedule. The device further comprises a verification element connected to the processor and being capable of ascertaining if a predefined condition is met, at least one of the verification element and the processor is capable of modifying the broadcasting schedule based on the predefined condition's ascertainment.

A method and apparatus for determining a position of an external transceiver (24) relative to an implanted transceiver (23) comprising means (30) for measuring the strength of a magnetic field proximal to thc external transceiver (24) and means for determining a position of the external transceiver (24) relative to the implanted transceiver (23) from said measured magnetic field strength. Furthermore there is disclosed is a method and apparatus for determining a skin flap thickness of a recipient of a prosthesis including a transcutaneous link between the external transceiver (24) and the implanted transceiver (23). A skin-flap thickness meter is also provided.

Voltage-binning of individual integrated circuits is achieved by operating those integrated circuits at a plurality of required clock frequencies and for each of those frequencies determining the minimum supply voltage level which produces a pass result for a series of applied test vectors.