1234 results about "Power efficient" patented technology

Improved methods and systems for position acquisition and / or monitoring are disclosed. The position acquisition and / or monitoring can be performed with improved intelligence so that data acquisition, transmission and / or processing is reduced. As a result, the position acquisition and / or monitoring is able to be performed in a power efficient manner.

A voice activation system is provided. The voice activation system includes a first stage configured to output a first activation signal if at least one energy characteristic of a received audio signal satisfies at least one threshold and a second stage configured to transition from a first state to a second state in response to the first activation signal and, when in the second state, to output a second activation signal if at least a portion of a profile of the audio signal substantially matches at least one predetermined profile.

Methods and apparatus for transmitting communications signals that are both power efficient and effective at avoiding or reducing transmitter-generated receive band noise. An exemplary transceiver apparatus includes a multi-mode transmitter that is configurable to operate in a plurality of operating modes (e.g., a polar mode, a quadrature mode and a hybrid mode), a receiver, and an operating mode controller. The operating mode controller is configured to control which operating mode the transmitter is to operate, depending on one or more of a transmit (Tx) power, receive (Rx) power, the Tx power relative to the Rx power, a level of frequency separation between a Tx frequency band and a Rx frequency band (Tx / Rx band separation), and modulation type employed by the transmitter.

A method for managing power consumption among a plurality of storage devices is disclosed. A system and a computer program product for managing power consumption among a plurality of storage devices are also disclosed. All the storage devices from among the plurality of storage devices are not powered-on at the same time. A request is received for powering on a storage device. A priority level for the request is determined, and a future power consumption (FPC) of the plurality of storage devices is predicted. The FPC is compared with a threshold. If the threshold is exceeded, a signal is sent to power off a powered-on device. The signal is sent only when the powered-on device is being used for a request with a lower priority than the determined priority. Once, the powered-on device is powered off, the requested storage device is powered on.

A ventilator device and system comprising a rotating compressor, preferably a drag compressor, which, at the beginning of each inspiratory ventilation phase, is accelerated to a sufficient speed to deliver the desired inspiratory gas flow, and is subsequently stopped or decelerated to a basal flow level to permit the expiratory ventilation phase to occur. The ventilator device is small and light weight enough to be utilized in portable applications. The ventilator device is power efficient enough to operate for extended periods of time on internal or external batteries. Also provided is an oxygen blending apparatus which utilizes solenoid valves having specific orifice sizes for blending desired amounts of oxygen into the inspiratory gas flow. Also provided is an exhalation valve having an exhalation flow transducer which incorporates a radio frequency data base to provide an attendant controller with specific calibration information for the exhalation flow transducer.

Envelope tracking (ET) methods and systems for controlling the delivery of power to radio frequency power amplifiers (RFPAs). An exemplary ET system includes an RFPA and a wide bandwidth capable and power efficient envelope modulator that includes a first power supplying apparatus and a second power supplying apparatus. The first power supplying apparatus includes a switch-mode converter and a regulator. The first mode converter is operable to dynamically step down a fixed power supply voltage according to amplitude variations in an envelope signal received by the regulator, and use the resulting dynamic power supply signal to power the regulator. The second power supplying apparatus is connected in parallel with the first power supplying apparatus. Depending on a power of an output signal to be generated at an output of the power amplifier, power is supplied to the power amplifier from either or both of the first and second power supplying apparatuses.

A direct sequence spread spectrum receiver samples an incoming signal and stores the sample in memory. Power is then inhibited to the tuner of the receiver to minimize power consumption. The signal sample may be read from memory when necessary to process the signal without further signal acquisition. Power to other receiver sections may be selectively controlled to minimize power consumption. Such a receiver is useful in global positioning satellite (GPS) signal processing where the receiver has a limited power supply.

A current-mode switching regulator uses adaptive current sensing to reliably monitor an inductor current in a cost-efficient and power-efficient manner. A semiconductor switch periodically turns on to conduct the inductor current. A voltage drop across the semiconductor switch is monitored when the semiconductor switch is on. A variable gain amplifier with an automatic gain control loop generates a feedback signal from the voltage drop of the semiconductor switch when conducting to provide an indication of the inductor current to a controller. The automatic gain control loop compensates for any variations in the on-resistance of the semiconductor switch.

The invention features a flow-through capacitor system that achieves enhanced power efficiency by sequential control and actuation of at least two or more flow-through capacitor cells within the flow-through capacitor system. Alternatively or in addition, power efficiency is enhanced by integrating the purification stages of the system, for example, by placing more than one cell within a single cell casing. Preferably, integrated stage flow-through capacitors are controlled sequentially.

A power efficient system architecture that exploits the characteristics of sensor networks in order to decrease the power consumption in the network. The primary characteristic of sensor networks is that the destination of all the data packets in the network is a central data collector and this central data collector, which is usually denoted as access point (AP), has unlimited transmission power and energy whereas the sensor nodes have limited battery energy and transmission power. The system uses the AP to directly synchronize and explicitly schedule the nodes' transmissions over Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) time slots.

A low-power, area and pin efficient signaling alternative to serial differential links used for chip-to-chip, backplane, optical and other signaling applications. The multi-bit differential signaling (MBDS) generally comprises a driver and link termination network design coupled with a coding system based on n choose M (nCm) coding. MBDS has comparable electrical characteristics to conventional low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) and is fully compatible with existing LVDS receivers in point-to-point and multi-point bus topologies. However, MBDS uses up to 40% less power, with up to 33% fewer I / O pads than equivalent LVDS links.

The invention relates to methods for improving a scheduling request transmission between a UE and a base station. The transmission of the scheduling request is postponed, by implementing a threshold that the data in the transmission buffer has to reach, before a transmission of the scheduling request is triggered. In one variant, the data in the transmission buffer needs to reach a specific amount, to trigger a scheduling request. The invention refers to further improvements: the PDDCH monitoring time window is delayed after sending a scheduling request; the dedicated scheduling request resources of the PUCCH are prioritized differently such that low-priority scheduling requests are transmitted less often.

The present disclosure provides a polarization multiplexed transceiver, including: a transmitter; a receiver; circuitry within the transmitter configured to insert pilot tones as a reference state of polarization for a polarization multiplexed signal; and circuitry within the receiver configured to de-multiplex the polarization multiplexed signal using the pilot tones. The transmitted signal is constructed in such a manner as to facilitate the division of the receiver processing between the analog and digital domains such that the implementation may be simultaneously both highly spectrally efficient and power efficient.

The invention is directed to an externally applied coordinator for communication and / or control of 2 or more implantable medical devices that may utilize different telemetry communication techniques. The coordinator receives telemetry signals from 2 or more implantable medical devices and provides functional direction to each of the devices to provide coordinated therapy and / or diagnostic function. The coordinator automatically configures itself for communication with a given medical device based either on the telemetry signal it receives or programmed by the physician. Specifically the coordinator is implemented as a software based, power efficient receiver / transmitter based upon an inexpensive, simple motor-controller DSP.

A system and method for generating an electrical signal for use in biomedical applications may have power efficient features, support battery powered operation and, support a reduced risk of shock hazard. The system may include a controller for generating one or more control signals operable to control pulse generating and waveform processing circuits. The control signals may include at least two states alternating in a chosen pattern as a function of time. During at least one of the control signal states, an oscillator for generating a pulsed signal may be operable. During at least another of the control signal states, the oscillator can be disabled and completely shut off in order to conserve considerable power. The generated pulses may be processed to provide desired intensity and frequency components. The processed signals may be applied to biological material.

Devices, such as tracking devices, cooperate with one another to establish the routing necessary for a relay network in which a device having power-efficient and data-reliable communication with an access portal, operates to relay messages from devices which do not have an acceptable communication path to and / or from the access portal. In one aspect of the present invention, a plurality of devices synchronously determine whether an acceptable communication path can be established between themselves and one or more access portals by measuring the signal strength of an access portal beacon. In another aspect of the present invention, one or more devices, which have determined that an acceptable communication path can be established between themselves and an access portal, transmit information regarding their availability to relay messages on behalf of devices which have determined that an acceptable communication path cannot be established between themselves and an access portal.

The systems and methods described herein relate to the power efficient measurement of physical activity with a wearable sensor. More particularly, the systems and methods described herein enable the continuous activity tracking without compromising battery life. In some implementations, the wearable sensor detects movement and enters predefined power states responsive to the type of movement detected.

Circuits that are matched to balanced codes may recover transmitted information in a noise resilient and power efficient manner. Circuit components for processing a balanced code may include one or more of: matched amplification of the signals representing the balanced code, matched equalization and / or filtering on the signals representing the balanced code, matched non-linear filtering on the signaling representing the balanced code to detect the presence of particular symbols and matched latching of the signals representing the balanced code. Such matched circuits and circuit components may be achieved at least in part by incorporating suitable common circuit nodes and / or a single energy source into circuit topologies.

A high quality and performance 3D graphics architecture suitable for portable handheld devices is provided. The 3D graphics architecture incorporates a module to classify polygons by size and other characteristics. In general, small and well-behaved triangles can be processed using “lower-precision” units with power efficient circuitry without any quality and performance sacrifice (e.g., realism, resolution, etc.). By classifying the primitives and selecting the more power-efficient processing unit to process the primitive, power consumption can be reduced without quality and performance sacrifice.

An illustrative power-efficient data center is described for operating in an uncontrolled environment in one scenario. The data center includes an air moving system that applies unconditioned air to its resource items. The resource items are stripped down to provide a substantially minimum set of components for performing the data center's core functions. Various illustrative techniques for managing a power-efficient data center are also described.

A storage system includes a first de-duplication scope comprising a first volume, a first table of hash values corresponding to first chunks of data stored on the first volume, and a first table of logical block addresses of where the chunks of data are stored on the first volume. A second de-duplication scope includes similar information for a second volume. The first scope is used for de-duplicating and storing first data from a first data source and the second scope is used for de-duplicating and storing second data from a second data source. First storage mediums that make up the first volume remain powered off while de-duplication and storage of the second data on the second volume takes place, and second storage mediums that make up the second volume remain powered off while de-duplication and storage of the first data takes place, thereby enabling data de-duplication while saving power.

The present invention relates to a method, system, client device, gateway device and computer program product for maintaining a state information in an intermediate network function, wherein the state information expires after a predetermined idle period. Detecting means are provided for detecting an idle state of a connection. In response to the detecting means, a transport protocol used for encapsulating data is changed from a first protocol with a first predetermined idle period to a second protocol with a second predetermined idle period, said second predetermined idle period being longer than said first predetermined idle period. Alternatively, a connection parameter is provided to a device for a parallel second connection in a set-up negotiation via said first connection. This connection parameter is then used for setting up a parallel second connection to the device based on the second transport protocol used for encapsulating data with the second predetermined idle period. Then, an information linking the first and second connections is transmitted from the device to the data network, wherein the second connection is used for transmitting a wake-up notification to the device in response a detected idle state. Both alternatives provide the advantage of reduced keep-alive signaling and thus enhanced battery efficiency.

Techniques for reliably and efficiently generating an output voltage for use within an electronic device, such as a memory system, are disclosed. A voltage generation circuit generates the output voltage. The voltage generation circuit includes regulation circuitry that controls regulation of the output voltage to maintain the output voltage at a substantially constant level. According to one aspect, regulation is provided through use of different feedback circuits. By selectively disabling one of the feedback circuits, power consumption can be reduced and the other of the feedback circuits can support the continued regulation of the output voltage. The voltage generation circuit is therefore able to operate in an accurate, stable and power efficient manner.

Power consumption in a storage system is reduced by selectively controlling power supplied to the storage devices, while also incorporating a de-duplication function to reduce the amount of required storage capacity. First storage devices are initially in a powered on condition and second storage devices are in a powered off condition. Write data received by the controller is initially stored to a first volume allocated from the first storage devices. While the second storage devices are powered on, content of the write data stored in the first volume is compared with content of any existing data stored in a second volume allocated on the second storage devices. When results of the comparison show that the content of the write data does not match the content of the existing data, the write data is stored to the second volume.

An apparatus and method by which an image is projected to pupils of a viewer. Preferably, the image covers only areas occupied by the pupils and tracks the areas occupied by the pupils such as to provide continuous display of the imagery to a viewer. The method is to dynamically control the direction of light into sub-apertures selected by a tracking device. By imaging selectively into the sub-apertures where the pupils are temporally located instead of imaging into a generally large area, the disclosed apparatus is power efficient and exclusive because the projected images are covert. This method is applicable to most biocular displays, for instance, but not limited to “see through” systems, which overlay imagery over real world scenes and where geometrically precise projection is critical. In one embodiment, the pupil scan apparatus is combined with a retinal scan apparatus to provide security. In this manner, only an authorized user of the apparatus can operate it.

Semiconductor diode lasers are phase-locked by direct current injection and combined to form a single coherent output beam. The optical power is amplified by use of fiber amplifiers. Electronically control of the optical phases of each emitter enables power efficient combining of output beams to be maintained under dynamic conditions.

A method and a system discover a wireless LAN network for a multi-mode handset in a power-efficient way. The method extends stand-by time for the cellular and wireless LAN multi-mode handset, taking advantage of that fact that the cellular interface demands less energy from the battery than the wireless LAN (WLAN)-based interface in such a handset. The method therefore uses the cellular interface as an always-on proxy for the wireless LAN interface to receive the initial packets of a communication session, and uses the initial packet or packets to activate the handset's interface with the wireless LAN.