Widely deployable charging system for vehicles

• US 20090011616A1
• Filed: 07/06/2008
• Published: 01/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Green Dot Transportation Inc.
• Original Assignee: Satyajit Patwardhan
• Inventors: Patwardhan, Satyajit
• Granted Patent: US 8,307,967 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 439/34
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 5/00 Current collectors for power supply lines of electrically-propelled vehicles current collectors in general H01R41/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/14 Conductive energy transfer
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/35 Means for automatic or assisted adjustment of the relative position of charging devices and vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: H01R 13/629 Additional means for facilitating engagement or disengagement of coupling parts, e.g. aligning or guiding means, levers, gas pressure electrical locking indicators, manufacturing tolerances separate tools or apparatus H01R43/26
• CPC Class Codes: H01R 13/70 with built-in switch
• CPC Class Codes: H01R 2201/26 for vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/7072 Electromobility specific charging systems or methods for batteries, ultracapacitors, supercapacitors or double-layer capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/12 Electric charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/14 Plug-in electric vehicles

Abstract

A mechanical, electrical and telecommunication system to electrically connect a vehicle to an electricity source to transfer energy to the vehicle is presented. In one rendition the system has a stationary portion on the road or infrastructure side, and a moving member on the vehicle. The system is designed to tolerate misalignments of a parked vehicle with respect to the parking stall. The infrastructure or road side component of the system being mechanically static is designed rugged and therefore is widely deployable. The system along with moving member is fail-safe and poses no threat to humans, the vehicle being charged or the vehicles sharing the road. An important component of the system is a pair of rigid, insulating strips with a series of conductors on each of them, placed at approximately right angles to each other. One of the strips is mounted on the infrastructure or road side and the other on the vehicle. The two strips cover the lateral and longitudinal misalignment of the parked vehicle. As long as the two strips have an overlap, the connection can be made by the conductors in the overlap region. The system is designed to operate only in the active presence and active desire of a vehicle to connect to the infrastructure or road side stationary part.

Claims

1. An electrical energy transfer system for transferring energy across two objects within specified range of relative position with respect to each other, which comprises of:

a. Two, arrays of insulated, independent conductive elements—

with elements disposed along a surface, such that one or more elements of the first array are intended to mate with one or more elements of the second array.

b. The geometry of the conductive element arrays and the conductive elements themselves is such that any arbitrarily selected overlap region of the two arrays can establish plurality of independent conductive paths across the two arrays.

c. A mechanism to attach—

henceforth referred as attaching mechanism or a mechanism to move—

henceforth referred as actuating mechanism to attach each of the two arrays to the two objects and to move one or both of the arrays closer to each other and into their mating position, such that one or more conductive elements of one array overlap with and connect to one or more conductive elements of the second array.

d. A set of switches to selectively connect each of the conductive element to other electrical circuits, which may include, but not limited to electrical power source, electrical power drain, electrical energy monitoring circuits, etc.

2. System of claim 1, with one or more of the four combined dimensions of the two arrays—

in their mating position, to be parallel to and at least as long as the permissible positioning misalignments of the two objects.

3. System of claim 1, with the elements of the conductive element arrays disposed along a curved surface.

4. System of claim 1, with the elements of the conductive element arrays disposed along a flat surface.

5. System of claim 1 with one or more of the conductive arrays comprising of a linear array of elements.

6. System of claim 1 where with one or more of the conductive element arrays with spring loaded elements to allow movement of individual elements relative to the array.

7. System of claim 1 with actuation mechanism tolerant of accepting a wide range of initial separation between the two arrayas.

8. System of claim 1 with actuation mechanism with at least one breakable member and spring loaded linkage to initiate retraction and keep the mechanism retracted under a fault condition in a way that will pose no hazard to the surrounding.

9. System of claim 1 with actuation mechanism enforcing relative sliding of contacting elements from the two arrays after mating.

10. System of claim 1 with actuation mechanism—

in its mated position to be tolerant to relative motion between the objects.

11. System of claim 1, with conductive elements such that

a. The said switches are normally-open-electrical-switches.

b. The other electrical circuits include voltage monitoring devices.

c. It has a sequencing device on one or both of the arrays to first sequence through a series of switching patterns on the switches described in (a), while monitoring the voltages pattern on the individual contactor elements.

d. It has a decision making device to select—

based on the voltages monitored in the sequence (c), a switching pattern on switches described in (a) to supply/receive electrical energy to/from only those contactors on the two arrays that are in connection with each other.

12. System of claim 1 with one or more of the following additional sub-systems:

a. A communication means to communicate data across the two objects.

b. A Protection device to switch off electrical energy source during a fault condition.

c. A communication device to communicate to energy supplier infrastructure to either process billing information or negotiate optimal energy transfer scheme.

13. System comprising of a combination of systems described in claim 1, claim 2, claim 3, claim 4, claim 5, claim 6, claim 7, claim 8, claim 9, claim 10, claim 11 and claim 12.

14. System of claim 13 with two conductive channels that are used for electrical power.

15. System of claim 13 with three conductive channels as follows:

a. one channel for live power sourced from the first object.

b. second channel for ground connection across first and second object.

c. third channel for live power sourced from second object to first object.

16. System of claim 15 in which the power sourced from second object to the first object is used to close a normally open master switch on the first object which establishes the power sourced from the first object.

17. System of claim 16 with the said master switch whose de-energized state is disconnected state.

18. System of claim 13 with a force sensor in the actuating mechanism to monitor required actuation force and detect the establishment of contact between elements of arrays when the actuation force reaches a certain threshold.

19. System of claim 13, with ability to monitor voltage and current across contacting array elements to monitor electrical quality of contact.

20. System of claim 13, with the first object being ground and the second object being a transportation vehicle.

21. System of claim 20, with actuating mechanism on the vehicle side and actuated by the motion of parking brake lever.

22. System of claim 20 such that the decision to move the arrays closer or farther is linked to the gear shift lever of the vehicle so as to ensure full retracted mechanism when the vehicle is in drive mode.

23. System of claim 20 such that the decision to move the arrays closer or farther is linked to the parking brake lever of the vehicle so as to ensure full retracted mechanism when the vehicle parking brake is disengaged.

24. System of claim 20 with actuating mechanism on the vehicle side whose retracted position keeps the vehicle side conductor array such that it is not extending out of the vehicle body in a way to cause damage to road, self or other vehicles while moving or stationary.

25. System of claim 20 with pneumatically powered actuating mechanism.

26. System of claim 20 with electric heating coils embedded in the arrays to melt away frozen moisture in cold climates.

27. System of claim 20 with heated air blowing over the stationary part to clear away debris as well as to melt and clear away frozen moisture in colder climates.