1899 results about "Work cycle" patented technology

A variety of methods and arrangements for improving the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines are described. Generally, selected combustion events are skipped during operation of the internal combustion engine so that other working cycles can operate at a better thermodynamic efficiency. In one aspect of the invention, an engine is controlled to operate in a variable displacement mode. In the variable displacement mode, fuel is not delivered to the working chambers (e.g. cylinders) during selected “skipped” working cycles. During active (“non-skipped”) working cycles, a maximum (e.g., unthrottled) amount of air and an optimized amount of fuel is delivered to the relevant working chambers so that the fired working chambers can operate at efficiencies closer to their optimal efficiency. A controller is used to dynamically determine the chamber firings required to provide the engine torque based on the engine's current operational state and conditions. The chamber firings may be sequenced in real time or in near real time in a manner that helps reduce undesirable vibrations of the engine.

The invention relates to a method and device for withdrawing biological samples. The device has a receptacle which can receive one or several covers for sample containers, another receptacle which can receive one or several sample containers, and a mechanism. Said mechanism joins the covers and containers together during a working cycle in which the biological sample is withdrawn either through the cover or the sample container to a test capsule.

A variety of methods and arrangements for controlling the operation of an internal combustion engine in a skip fire variable displacement mode are described. Generally, an engine is controlled to operate in a skip fire variable displacement mode. In the variable displacement mode, selected combustion events are skipped so that other working cycles can operate at better thermodynamic efficiency. More specifically, selected “skipped” working cycles are not fired while other “active” working cycles are fired. Typically, fuel is not delivered to the working chambers during skipped working cycles. In one aspect of the invention, a firing pattern is determined that is not fixed but the active working cycles are selected to favor the firing of working chambers that have recently been fired at least in part to reduce wall wetting losses. In another aspect of the invention, when an active working cycle follows a skipped working cycle in the same working chamber, the quanta of fuel injected for delivery to the working chamber is increased relative to the quanta of fuel that would be delivered to the working chamber when the active working cycle follows another active working cycle in the same working chamber in order to compensate for wall wetting losses that occur during skipped working cycles.

By realizing or installing check valve liquid vein interrupters in each compartment of the battery the phenomenon of slow discharge of the retained volumes of electrolytes during long periods of inactivity of a redox flow battery, with the electrolyte pumps stopped altogether, can be practically eliminated with the effect that the battery is perfectly ready to deliver electric power immediately upon request even after prolonged periods of inactivity. Moreover, the presence of liquid vein interrupters on each compartment in either an outlet or an inlet port substantially preventing by-pass current during a not pumping phase, permits to increase the by pumping the electrolytes through the compartments of a battery stack intermittently, in other words in a pulsed manner, with a certain duty-cycle. Relatively brief pumping phases at relatively high flow rate alternated to phases of not pumping provide for a volumetrically adequate refreshing of the electrolytes present in the battery compartments and contrast the formation of gradients in the bodies of electrolyte.

A control circuit for LEDs is adapted for controlling brightness of a plurality of LEDs as light source in an LCD. The control circuit comprises a control pulse generator and a plurality of LED direct current supplies. The control pulse generator is used for receiving a brightness adjusting signal and generating a plurality of brightness control pulse signals having the same frequency but different phases according to the brightness control signals. The work cycle of the brightness control pulse signal varies in a predetermined range according to the brightness control signal. The LED direct current provider is coupled to the control pulse generator to drive the corresponding LED according to the brightness pulse signal.

A variety of methods and arrangements for improving the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines are described. Generally, selected combustion events are skipped during operation of the internal combustion engine so that other working cycles can operate at a better thermodynamic efficiency. In one aspect of the invention, an engine is controlled to operate in a variable displacement mode. In the variable displacement mode, fuel is not delivered to the working chambers (e.g. cylinders) during selected “skipped” working cycles. During active (“non-skipped”) working cycles, a maximum (e.g., unthrottled) amount of air and an optimized amount of fuel is delivered to the relevant working chambers so that the fired working chambers can operate at efficiencies closer to their optimal efficiency. A controller is used to dynamically determine the chamber firings required to provide the engine torque based on the engine's current operational state and conditions. The chamber firings may be sequenced in real time or in near real time in a manner that helps reduce undesirable vibrations of the engine.

A method is provided for controlling a work machine during operation in a repeated work cycle including controlling transfer of power to and from an energy storage arrangement in the work machine according to a predetermined control strategy, which is adapted for the characteristics of the work cycle.

In embodiments, improved capabilities are described for dimming performance of lighting methods and systems, such as the improvement of dimming LED lamps that are dimmed from standard external dimming devices. Methods and systems for improving dimming performance include a fast startup override facility for overriding a default dimming function of the lamp's electronics through forcing the lamp electronics to operate with a higher than normal duty cycle to ensure the lamp electronics can deliver higher than normal power to an LED module during a dimming current level startup condition. Dimming facilities may also include a dynamic RC selection facility, an active N-level bleeder facility, a dimmer-type detection facility, an improved dimming linearity through symmetrical phase cutting facility, and a flicker reduction facility.

A method is provided for controlling a work machine during operation in a repeated work cycle including the steps of establishing a control strategy on the basis of at least one condition that varies in the course of the work cycle, and controlling at least one device in a work machine power transmission system in response to the established control strategy.

A C-Band Disinfector disinfects objects placed within the device by subjecting the objects to closed-loop emissions of UV-C radiation. UV-C sensors measure reflected UV-C radiation and control the period of operation of the device. In an additional embodiment, UV-C radiation is transmitted by fiber-optic cable to a particular area of an object to be disinfected. After the prescribed dose is applied, the fiber-optic cable is moved to a new area of the object, and the UV-C disinfection process continues until all areas of the object have been disinfected by exposure to the prescribed dose of the UV-C radiation.

The hydraulic power source with low idling energy consumption belongs to the field of fluid transmission and control technology, and is one oil supply device designed to lower the energy consumption in the non-work period and partial load work condition of hydraulic system. The present invention consists of hydraulic pump, motor, motor rotation speed controller, energy accumulator, solenoid valve, pressure sensor, displacement sensor, controller, pipeline, executor controlling proportion valve, direction valves and other parts. The present invention features that the hydraulic pump is one constant pressure variable capacity pump with displacement sensor for detecting the displacement of the pump, altering the rotation speed of the pump can reach the composite functions of making the power source possess constant pressure, constant flow and constant power, and lowering the rotation speed in the non-work period and partial load work condition of hydraulic pump can lower the power consumption of the system.

A recuperating four-stroke internal combustion engine obtains improves Carnot efficiency by use of a new and novel cylinder head which captures thermal energy normally thrown away in the exhaust and re-introduces it to the working cycle. This result, long sought by others, has been achieved by incorporating within the head a compact internal recuperative heat exchanger in series with a combustion chamber or pre-chamber. A recuperator-protecting valve segregates the recuperator from hot combustion gases until the gases reach maximum expansion in the cylinder. Recuperators of both common-duct and seperated-duct design are described, the separated duct recuperator permitting higher recuperator temperature and increased efficiency and a reduction in the number of valves necessary to control gas flow. A preferred embodiment employs four valves per cylinder unit, a separated duct recuperator, and an insulating liner that surrounds both the combustion chamber and the recuperator. A similar prototype recuperative engine has demonstrated that recuperation can reduce exhaust temperature as much as 600° Rankine below that attainable in an equivalent Otto Cycle engine.

A method for interactive definition and management of a treatment for monitoring blood glucose of a diabetic patient includes performing two distinct, asynchronous and simultaneous, work cycles, having different length: a first local cycle, shorter, includes the steps of acquiring at least one value of said patient's blood glucose by means of a glucometer integrated in a monitoring device, calculating an insulin dosage value to be administered to the patient, by means of a computing algorithm, provided by a specialist doctor, displaying the insulin dosage on a monitoring device display, and defining a date and time for subsequent acquisition of blood glucose level. Furthermore, the system automatically sends glycemic information to the doctor, if they are beyond mean value parameters, time passed from a last contact and number of hypoglycemic value measurements, that the specialist himself can set for each patient and modify over time. A second remote cycle, longer, includes reading the patient's last blood glucose value, periodical running of a procedure for extracting a group of data significant for the patient, related to at least the trend of glycemic level values of the patient and to corresponding insulin doses, recommended on the basis of computation of said algorithm in a predetermined previous period; transmission of the group of significant date to the specialist' doctor's remote computer, by means of a simplified transmitter/receiver module operating via a mobile telephone network, integrated with monitoring device, possibly receiving a set of modified parameters for performing the computing algorithm, or a new computing algorithm, and introduction of such set of modified parameters or of the new algorithm in the managing program.

The invention relates to the field of wireless self-organizing networks and sensor networks, in particular to an energy consumption control method under delay constraint in a wireless sensor network. The energy consumption control method comprises the following steps of: generating a normal data packet and a pioneer data packet by a source node when data packets in the wireless sensor network need to be transmitted to a base station from the source node, wherein the normal data packet is used for transmitting the data packets, and the pioneer data packet is used for selecting nodes on a transmission path; determining the delay constraint of the nodes on the transmission path; computing the best sleep time of the nodes on the transmission path; applying the best sleep time to a duty ratio self-adaptive adjustment mechanism to obtain new duty ratio to transmit the data packets; and respectively recovering work cycles of all the nodes on the transmission path into an original state after all the data packets are transmitted to the base station. According to the energy consumption control method under the delay constraint in the wireless sensor network, on the premise that the constraint condition of the wireless sensor network on transmission delay is met, the energy consumption of the wireless sensor network is reduced to the maximum limit, and the service life of the wireless sensor network is prolonged.

The invention discloses a determination method of network side harmonic current of a high-voltage direct current power transmission system. The determination method comprises the following steps: if the harmonic current voltage at a direct current power transmission line inlet is zero, decoupling and equalizing a rectifying side and an inverting side into a plurality of independent six-pulse moving bridge units; dividing a work period of the six-pulse moving bridge units into six phase converting sections and six non-phase converting sections; calculating a phase converting overlapping angle of each phase converting section; equalizing a current converter into a harmonic current voltage source containing internal resistance; calculating the direct current side harmonic current according to the concrete forms of a smoothing reactor and a direct current filter; obtaining valve side harmonic current according to an equivalent circuit of the current converter; and converting the valve side harmonic current to a network side according to a connecting structure of a transformer to obtain the network side harmonic current. The invention considers background harmonic current and other nonideal factors, and can quickly and accurately obtain the harmonic current at the network side of a converter transformer, accelerate the period for designing an alternating current filter in the high-voltage direct current power transmission engineering and improve the design quality and the design efficiency.

The invention discloses a heating control method of an electric water heater and the electric water heater. The method comprises the following steps: setting a plurality of working periods of heating control of the electric water heater; dividing each day within each working period into a plurality of time quanta; recording the water consumption condition of a user within each time quantum, and determining the regular time quantum and irregular time quantum of water consumption of the user; recording the water consumption conditions of the user in the regular time quantum and the irregular time quantum; determining the user level according to the water consumption conditions of the user in the regular time quantum and the irregular time quantum; and adjusting the heating control rule of the electric water heater. According to the technical scheme, the method has the advantages that the water consumption habit of the user can be dynamically tracked, and the user level can be determined according to the water consumption conditions of the user in the regular time quantum and the irregular time quantum, so that the user can use hot water within the time quantum that the water is usually used, and moreover, repeated heating can be avoided, and as a result, the energy can be saved.

The invention discloses a solar energy and recycled water dual-heat-resource heat pump sludge drying system. The system is characterized by comprising full-automatic plate-and-frame filter-pressing equipment, crashing equipment, and solar energy and recycled water dual-heat-resource heat pump drying equipment which are in combined configuration, wherein the solar energy and recycled water dual-heat-resource heat pump drying equipment mainly comprises heat pump drying equipment, a drying chamber and a solar heat collector arranged thereon; a multilayer belt conveyor, a multilevel crashing device and a high-voltage electric field which are distributed from the top to the bottom are arranged in the drying chamber; the heat pump drying equipment has two working cycles of dehumidifying and a heat pump, and mainly comprises an evaporator, a gas-liquid separator, a compressor, a condenser, a throttling device and a dehumidifying evaporator, wherein the evaporator is connected with a recycled water system; the compressor, the condenser and the throttling device are connected with the gas-liquid separator; a heat exchanger is arranged outside the condenser; and the on-off state of the cycling loops of the two working cycles is controlled by an electromagnetic valve. The solar energy and recycled water dual-heat-resource heat pump sludge drying system has the characteristics of rational process technical route, stable operation, lower investment cost, simple equipment mechanism, modularized combination, high automation degree in whole operational control and simple operation and maintenance.

A method and machine with an automated digging cycle is provided. The method includes moving an implement system of the machine through a work cycle, including interacting with a material. The method further includes sensing values associated with a bucket velocity parameter, such as bucket tip velocity, during interacting with the material, and controlling the velocity parameter via commands which control a sequence of bucket orientations whereby an implement system of the machine interacts with the material, responsive to the sensed values. The machine includes an electronic controller configured via a control algorithm to execute the automated digging cycle. A velocity based control system for an excavating machine includes an electronic controller configured to receive velocity signals from at least one sensor, determine a bucket tip velocity, and output control commands to move a bucket of the excavating machine through a material via a sequence of bucket orientations that is based on the determined bucket tip velocity.

A valve for controlling liquids which for its actuation is provided with a liquid-filled coupling chamber, which is disposed between an actuator piston of a piezoelectric actuator and a piston that actuates a valve member. To compensate for liquid losses suffered by the coupling chamber, which is briefly at high in each work cycle, the pressure difference that exists during the return stroke of the actuator piston between the coupling chamber and the opposite sides of the actuator piston and of the that actuates the valve member that are remote from the coupling chamber is utilized to achieve refilling in valveless fashion along gaps. The valve is used for use in fuel injection systems for internal combustion engines of motor vehicles.

The invention discloses a capacitive touch panel detection circuit and a boost circuit thereof, wherein the boost circuit comprises a plurality of charge pumps in series, a sequence circuit and a voltage-stabilizing circuit. The charge pump comprises a first switch, a second switch, a third switch, a fourth switch, a first capacitor and a second capacitor. The switches are controlled by the sequence circuit. During the first half of the working cycle of the charge pump, the first capacitor is charged. During the second half of the working cycle of the charge pump, the second capacitor is charged so that the voltage is two times of the power voltage, after the first capacitor is connected with the power supply in sequence. The boost circuit of the invention does not need an induction and a Schottky diode. All of the capacitors except a voltage-stabilizing capacitor can be integrated into a chip. Therefore, the number of off-chip ancillary components can be reduced. Furthermore, the problem of electromagnetic interference in an inductive boost circuit can be solved.

The invention discloses an electric water heater and a heating control method thereof. The heating control method comprises steps as follows: the total time for heating control is arranged and equally divided into a plurality of work period, and each day in each work period is divided into a plurality of time slots; in the first work period, the electric water heat is controlled to carry out heating or heat preservation, so that reserved hot water is kept in the electric water heater; the second work period is entered, whether the number of days, in which water is discharged at the same time slot, in a plurality of days in the first work period is larger than the predetermined number of days (N), is judged; if the number of days is larger than A, the time slot is a regular time slot; if not, the time slot is an irregular time slot; in the second work period, the electric water heat is controlled to carry out heating or heat preservation, so that reserved heat water volume is kept in the regular time slot; work periods after the second work period are entered sequentially, in each work period, whether time slots are regular or irregular time slots is judged, and the electric water heater is controlled to carry out heating or heat preservation according to the result. According to the heating control method, water use habits of users can be followed up, and heating is adjusted in real time.

A method and apparatus for controlling the operation of an engine of a motor vehicle is disclosed in which the engine is restarted while the vehicle is in motion by bump starting it if the speed of the vehicle falls within predetermined speed limits but is otherwise restarted using a starter motor. The number of starts for which the starter motor is used is thereby reduced advantageously reducing wear of the starter motor and increasing the life and/or reducing the duty cycle of the battery or source of power used for the starter motor.

A machine may include a powertrain drivingly connected to the wheels through a torque transfer unit to transfer torque to the front wheels as a function of a desired front torque and to the rear wheels as a function of a desired rear torque. At least one sensor of the machine may detect a value of an operating parameter indicative of a work cycle step being performed by the machine. A control unit determines the work cycle step being performed as a function of the value of the parameter, and the desired front and rear torques as a function of the work cycle step. The control unit also considers the weight and position of a load of material borne by an implement of the machine in determining the work cycle step being performed.