Method and apparatus for vehicular energy management
First Claim
1. A method for energy capture and management comprising:
- gathering energy from a plurality of harvestable energy sources available on a vehicle, the harvestable energy sources including a bank of roof mounted solar panels, the harvestable energy sources including electrical generation in excess of power employed for maintaining vehicular propulsion, the vehicle having a primary propulsion mechanism, and at least one load, the load consuming power independent of the primary propulsion mechanism;
interconnecting the solar panels with a busbar interconnect, the busbar interconnect responsive to control signals directed to reconfiguring the solar panels for modifying an aggregate voltage or current received from the interconnected solar panels storing the gathered energy; and
employing the stored energy for powering the load when the primary propulsion mechanism is inactive, further comprising;
computing a demand based on payload, weather and ambient temperature;
comparing the computed demand to a capacity of the stored energy;
determining a shortfall if the stored energy is less than the computed demand; and
reducing a heating demand of a comfort station for accommodating a perishable payload in response to the ambient temperature.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A vehicle energy management system for gathering, storing the energy, and distributing the stored energy supports various subsystems on the vehicle such as driver comfort systems, payload refrigeration, liftgate mechanisms, and roof de-icing, for example. The system harvests energy from various sources available to the vehicle, such as solar panels, regenerative braking and shock absorbers. The harvested energy is gathered for battery storage. Management logic allocates the stored electricity to various vehicle loads defined by the subsystems, based on factors such as time of day, ambient temperature, and weather conditions, which are used to predict the electrical demand called for by the loads. Harvestable energy sources available to the vehicle, combined with sufficient battery storage, provides electrical power for supporting these loads without relying on an idling engine for providing electrical or hydraulic power to accommodate the vehicle subsystems, such as comfort stations for an idle-free vehicle implementation.
-
Citations
22 Claims
-
1. A method for energy capture and management comprising:
-
gathering energy from a plurality of harvestable energy sources available on a vehicle, the harvestable energy sources including a bank of roof mounted solar panels, the harvestable energy sources including electrical generation in excess of power employed for maintaining vehicular propulsion, the vehicle having a primary propulsion mechanism, and at least one load, the load consuming power independent of the primary propulsion mechanism; interconnecting the solar panels with a busbar interconnect, the busbar interconnect responsive to control signals directed to reconfiguring the solar panels for modifying an aggregate voltage or current received from the interconnected solar panels storing the gathered energy; and employing the stored energy for powering the load when the primary propulsion mechanism is inactive, further comprising; computing a demand based on payload, weather and ambient temperature; comparing the computed demand to a capacity of the stored energy; determining a shortfall if the stored energy is less than the computed demand; and reducing a heating demand of a comfort station for accommodating a perishable payload in response to the ambient temperature. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 21)
-
-
11. A mobile energy storage and management controller comprising:
-
a storage interface to an electrical storage component on a vehicle, the vehicle having a primary propulsion mechanism; a gathering interface configured to receive electrical energy gathered from the vehicle, the gathering interface responsive to generation sources on the vehicle, the generation sources including a bank of roof mounted solar panels, the generation sources including electrical generation in excess of power employed for maintaining vehicular propulsion; a busbar interconnect for interconnecting the solar panels, the busbar interconnect responsive to control signals directed to switching the solar panels for modifying an aggregate voltage or current received from the interconnected solar panels; and power management logic for allocating power to loads on the vehicle based on current and anticipated demand, the allocated power for accommodating inactivity of the primary propulsion mechanism when allocating the power, the power management logic configured to; compute a demand based on payload, weather and ambient temperature; compare the computed demand to a capacity of the stored energy; determine a shortfall if the stored energy is less than the computed demand; and reduce a heating demand of a comfort station for accommodating a perishable payload in response to the ambient temperature and for accommodating de-icing usage in response to the weather. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
22. A method for energy capture and management comprising:
-
gathering energy from a plurality of harvestable energy sources available on a vehicle, the harvestable energy sources including a bank of roof mounted solar panels, the harvestable energy sources including electrical generation in excess of power employed for maintaining vehicular propulsion, the vehicle having a primary propulsion mechanism, and at least one load, the load consuming power independent of the primary propulsion mechanism; interconnecting the solar panels with a busbar interconnect, the busbar interconnect responsive to control signals directed to switching the solar panels for modifying an aggregate voltage or current received from the interconnected solar panels storing the gathered energy; and employing the stored energy for powering the load when the primary propulsion mechanism is inactive; computing a demand based on payload type, weather and ambient temperature; identifying, based on ambient weather, an expected time of available sunlight; computing, based on a current and voltage expected from vehicle mounted interconnected solar panels, an increase in the stored energy resulting from the expected available sunlight; comparing the computed demand to a capacity of the stored energy resulting from the increase; determining a shortfall if the stored energy is less than the computed demand; and determining, based on a previous pattern of daily determined shortfall, a utilization factor indicative of a sufficiency of storage capacity of the battery.
-
Specification