PROGRAMMABLE WINDOW: A DEVICE FOR CONTROLLING THE OPACITY OF SMALL-SCALE AREAS WITHIN A LARGE-SCALE TRANSPARENT MEMBRANE

• US 20100328757A1
• Filed: 08/04/2010
• Published: 12/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Assaf Biderman, Carlo Ratti, Martin Ramos
• Original Assignee: Assaf Biderman, Carlo Ratti, Martin Ramos
• Inventors: Ratti, Carlo, Ramos, Martin, Biderman, Assaf
• Granted Patent: US 8,072,676 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 359/296
• CPC Class Codes: E04B 1/00 Constructions in general; Structures which are not restricted either to walls, e.g. partitions, or floors or ceilings or roofs scaffolds, shutterings E04G; structures specially adapted for buildings for special purposes, general layout of buildings, e.g. modular co-ordination, E04H
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/172 based on a suspension of orientable dipolar particles, e.g. suspended particles displays
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 19/22 Advertising or display means on roads, walls or similar surfaces, e.g. illuminated
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 19/226 External wall display means; Facade advertising means
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 19/227 on windows
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2300/06 Passive matrix structure, i.e. with direct application of both column and row voltages to the light emitting or modulating elements, other than LCD or OLED
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2300/088 using a non-linear two-terminal element
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2310/0208 using active addressing
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2310/0267 Details of drivers for scan electrodes, other than drivers for liquid crystal, plasma or OLED displays
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/0209 Crosstalk reduction, i.e. to reduce direct or indirect influences of signals directed to a certain pixel of the displayed image on other pixels of said image, inclusive of influences affecting pixels in different frames or fields or sub-images which constitute a same image, e.g. left and right images of a stereoscopic display
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/34 by control of light from an independent source

Abstract

Disclosed is a system and method to affect natural lighting profiles in a programmable window made from a single transparent membrane, wherein the method comprises: forming a matrix comprising of pixel elements within the single transparent membrane, setting (in a programmable controller) a degree of shading in at least one pixel in the matrix, receiving control command(s) from the programmable controller and, in response to the control command(s), independently driving the pixel(s) within the single transparent membrane to set its/their opacity according to the degree of shading. The degree of shading in each pixel within the single transparent membrane is controlled by controlling percentage of light transmitted according to the control command(s) issued by the programmable controller.

Claims

1. A method to affect natural lighting profiles in a programmable window made from a single transparent membrane, said method comprising:

forming a matrix comprising a plurality of pixel elements within said single transparent membrane, each of said one or more pixels being wired using a transparent conductor and capable of being independently driven to control opacity;

setting in a programmable controller a degree of shading in at least one pixel in said matrix of pixel elements;

receiving one or more control commands from said programmable controller, said control commands issued to control opacity of at least one pixel element in said matrix;

in response to said one or more control commands, independently driving said at least one pixel within said single transparent membrane to set its opacity according to said degree of shading, and

wherein degree of shading in each pixel element within said single transparent membrane is controlled by controlling percentage of light transmitted according to control commands issued by said programmable controller.

2. A method to affect natural lighting profiles in a building facade, as per claim 1, wherein each pixel element comprises two transparent layers with suspended particles held between said transparent layers.

3. A method to affect natural lighting profiles in a building facade, as per claim 1, wherein said suspended particles become induced dipoles in the presence of an electric field, said electric field controllable via said controller.

4. A method to affect natural lighting profiles in a building facade, as per claim 1, wherein each element in said matrix comprises a layer of suspended particles sandwiched between layers of transparent glass.

5. A method to affect natural lighting profiles in a building facade, as per claim 1, wherein each of the pixels is driven using a dual MOSFET totem topology.