Reactive replenishable device management

• US 9,059,485 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2010
• Issued: 06/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Webasto Charging Systems, Inc. (Webasto Beteiligungs Verwaltung Gbr)
• Original Assignee: Aerovironment
• Inventors: Dickinson, Blake, Horiuchi, Lisa Lei, Ramer, Nathaniel Jordan
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo, Kenneth
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHANG, SUNRAY
• Application Number:
  US12/880,033
• Publication Number:
  US 20100332076A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,740 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/10 Air crafts
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/12 Bikes
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/26 Rail vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/32 Waterborne vessels
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/42 Fork lift trucks
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/44 Industrial trucks or floor conveyors
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/32 Auto pilot mode
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 3/12 Recording operating variables ; Monitoring of operating variables
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/00 Methods of charging batteries, specially adapted for electric vehicles; Charging stations or on-board charging equipment therefor; Exchange of energy storage elements in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/11 DC charging controlled by the charging station, e.g. mode 4
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/305 Communication interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/65 involving identification of vehicles or their battery types
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/68 Off-site monitoring or control, e.g. remote control
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/80 Exchanging energy storage elements, e.g. removable batteries
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/12 responding to state of charge [SoC]
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/40 for controlling a combination of batteries and fuel cells
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 10/4207 for several batteries or cells simultaneously or sequentially
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 10/482 for several batteries or cells simultaneously or sequentially
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 : User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/10 : Energy storage using batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/60 : Electric or hybrid propulsion means for production processes
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 : Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/167 : Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for supporting the interoperability of electric or hybrid vehicles, i.e. smartgrids as interface for battery charging of electric vehicles [EV] or hybrid vehicles [HEV]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/40 : Application of hydrogen technology to transportation, e.g. using fuel cells
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 30/12 : Remote or cooperative charging
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 30/14 : Details associated with the interoperability, e.g. vehicle recognition, authentication, identification or billing

Abstract

Reactive replenishable device management comprises receiving device measurement data from at least one device, updating one or more device usage profiles associated with the at least one device, and if an analysis of the one or more device usage profiles indicates usage of the at least one device is sub-optimal, performing one or more of: controlling at least one of an attribute or an operation of the at least one device, issuing one or more device management recommendations to a user of the at least one device, and issuing one or more user alerts to the user. The at least one device comprises at least one of one or more replenishable devices, one or more replenishers associated with the one or more replenishable devices, and one or more other devices associated with the one or more replenishable devices.

Claims

1. A method for dynamic control of one or more devices based on device measurement data received from the one or more devices, the method comprising:

receiving device measurement data from;

a replenishable device,

a replenisher associated with the replenishable device, and

a vehicle associated with the replenishable device, the device measurement data including (a) identification data, (b) historical data, and (c) real-time data for each of the replenishable device, the replenisher, and the vehicle;

updating a usage profile associated with vehicle energy usage using the device measurement data received from the replenishable device, the replenisher, and the vehicle, the usage profile comprising performance data of both the replenishable device and the vehicle gathered over a period of time; and

analyzing the usage profile to determine whether vehicle energy usage is sub-optimal, wherein when it is determined that vehicle energy usage is sub-optimal, an automatic controller of a remote device manager which is remote from and operationally coupled to the vehicle automatically controls a performance level of the vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the device measurement data comprises:

identification data that describes one or more time-invariant attributes of the vehicle;

historical data that describes one or more time-variant attributes of each of the replenishable device and the vehicle; and

real-time data that describes a single sample of one or more time-variant attributes of each of the replenishable device and the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

receiving time variable data entered via a manual input means, the time variable data defining a utility schedule; and

using the data received from the vehicle, the replenishable device, and the manual input means to automatically control the replenisher during a replenishing of the replenishable device of the vehicle to account for the utility schedule.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein

the replenishable device comprises a battery;

and

the automatic controller identifies a low water level of the battery and triggers a command to a watering system that effectuates automatic watering of the battery.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the automatic controller identifies a low state of charge of the battery and triggers a reduction of temperature fold back in small steps per week.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the automatic controller identifies a sub-optimized charging regimen of the battery and triggers an adjustment of battery charge rates.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the automatic controller identifies a sub-par battery performance and automatically initiates unscheduled battery equalization.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the device measurement data comprises:

identification data that describes one or more time-invariant attributes of the vehicle;

historical data that describes one or more time-variant attributes of each of the replenishable device and the vehicle; and

real-time data that describes a single sample of one or more time-variant attributes of each of the replenishable device and the vehicle.

11. The method of claim 2, the method further comprising:

receiving time variable data entered via a manual input means, the time variable data defining a utility schedule; and

using the data received from the vehicle, the replenishable device, and the manual input means to automatically control the replenisher during a replenishing of the replenishable device of the vehicle to account for the utility schedule.

12. The method of claim 2, wherein

the replenishable device comprises a battery;

and

the automatic controller identifies a low water level of the battery and triggers a command to a watering system that effectuates automatic watering of the battery.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the automatic controller identifies a low state of charge of the battery and triggers a reduction of temperature fold back in small steps per week.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the automatic controller identifies a sub-optimized charging regimen of the battery and triggers an adjustment of battery charge rates.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the automatic controller identifies a sub-par battery performance and automatically initiates unscheduled battery equalization.

9. A method for reactive replenishable device management, the method comprising:

receiving device measurement data from;

a replenishable device,

a replenisher associated with the replenishable device, and

a vehicle associated with the replenishable device;

updating a device usage profile associated with vehicle energy usage using the device measurement data received from the replenishable device, the replenisher, and the vehicle, the device usage profile comprising performance data of the replenishable device and the vehicle gathered over a period of time; and

analyzing the usage profile to determine whether vehicle energy usage is sub-optimal, wherein when it is determined that vehicle energy usage is sub-optimal, an automatic controller of a remote device manager which is remote from and operationally coupled to the vehicle automatically controls a performance level of the vehicle.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the device measurement data comprises:

identification data that describes one or more time-invariant attributes of the vehicle;

historical data that describes one or more time-variant attributes of each of the replenishable device and the vehicle; and

real-time data that describes a single sample of one or more time-variant attributes of each of the replenishable device and the vehicle.