Sony Corporation

Kazutoshi Nomoto

Takao Fukui

Yasuhiro Watanabe

Koichi Tanaka

Yoshihiro Murakami

Shoji Hirata

Yuichi Takai

Masahiko Tahara

Chiaki Kanai

Kazuhiko Otsuka

Michimasa Sekiguchi

A fuel cell mount apparatus includes: a fuel cell system including a power generation unit for generating electric power by use of a fuel and air, a hydrogen occlusion cylinder for supplying the fuel to the power generation unit, an air supply means for supplying air to the power generation unit, and a control unit for controlling the power generating operation of the power generation unit; and a dog type robot mounted with the fuel cell system and operated by electric power outputted from the fuel cell, wherein a part of component elements of the fuel cell system and a part of component elements of the dog type robot are used in common with each other, i.e., one of the component elements functions also as the other of the component elements, whereby a component element can be made to function as both a part of an electronic apparatus and a part of the fuel cell, the wastefulness of component elements can be removed, and the fuel cell can be efficiently mounted on various electronic apparatuses.

Fuel cell mount apparatus and electric power supply system

A fuel cell and an electronic apparatus with same mounted thereon are provided. The fuel cell includes a power generation unit provided with a conduit for an oxidant gas containing at least oxygen, a heat radiation unit connected to the power generation unit so as to radiate heat from the power generation unit, a gas flow means for causing the oxidant gas to flow in the conduit, and a cooling means driven independently from the gas flow means so as to cool the heat radiation unit. By independently controlling the driving of the gas flow means and the cooling means, the fuel cell can be driven in such a manner that the temperature of the power generation unit and the amount of water remaining in the power generation unit are regulated into preferable conditions. Furthermore, it is possible to provide a fuel cell and an electronic apparatus with the same mounted thereon in which power generation can be performed stably and various apparatuses are contained therein in a compact form.

Fuel cell and electronic apparatus with the same mounted thereon

A vibration detection device that includes a light source that emits a laser beam; an interferometer, which includes two vibrating bodies that are capable of reflecting the laser beam, that splits the laser beam to cause interference patterns; and a detector that detects vibrations on the basis of the interference patterns.

Vibration detection device and vibration detector

Electronic equipment and power management method for the power equipment and a power source unit are provided. The present invention provides a guideline associated with control content required to use a fuel cell as a power source in various kinds of electronic equipment, and perform appropriate power management according to loads. A notebook personal computer includes a hybrid pack which has a battery serving as a secondary battery, a battery protection IC for controlling this battery, a fuel cell for causing a predetermine fuel and air to electrochemically react with each other so as to cause a power generating unit to generate power, and a fuel cell controller for controlling this fuel cell, and a computer body at least having a CPU for executing various processes and consuming power. In the hybrid pack, the battery protection IC and the fuel cell controller mutually transfer at least remaining battery power information indicative of the amount of power remaining in the battery and fuel cell status information indicative of a status of the fuel cell, to each other via a bus.

Electronic equipment and power management method for the electronic equipment, and power source unit

Methods of operating a fuel cell and a power supply systems are provided. The methods and systems of the present invention are capable of suppressing condensation of moisture obstructing an air passage without the need of any complicated system configuration. The method of operating a fuel cell includes controlling a supply of air while monitoring a relative humidity of exhausted air. The step of controlling the supply of air can be performed such that the relative humidity of exhausted air becomes equal to or less than a specific humidity. The power supply system including, as a power supply, a fuel cell having an air supply unit, an air exhaust unit, and a fuel gas supply unit includes a humidity sensor provided on the air exhaust unit, and a control mechanism for controlling a supplied amount of air in the air supply unit based on the information provided from the humidity sensor.

Method of operating fuel cell and power supply system

An output from a generator section is controlled by a current converter section to be a constant current. Charging and discharging of a power storage section is controlled by a charge/discharge control circuit. Thereby, even in a case where a current value required by a load is high, the case can be dealt with in the manner that, while an output current from the generator section is being maintained constant, the output from the generator section and an output from the power storage section can be caused to function in cooperation with each other. Further, charging and discharging of the power storage section can be performed by a simplified device.

Power supply system and electronic device

A digital signal processing apparatus for matching the sampling frequency of an input digital signal to an internal sampling frequency. The digital signal processing apparatus has a sampling frequency converting unit for matching the sampling frequency of an input digital signal to an internal sampling frequency, a sampling frequency detection unit for detecting the sampling frequency of the input digital signa, a frequency difference calculating unit for finding the frequency difference between the inherent sampling frequency of the input digital signal and the sampling frequency detected by the sampling frequency detection unit and a pitch shifting unit for shifting the pitch of an output digital signal of the sampling frequency converting unit based upon said frequency difference. If the input digital signal has the sampling frequency slightly offset from the inherent sampling frequency, the signal of the inherent sampling frequency can be recovered, while the pitch can be restored to the inherent pitch.

Digital signal processing apparatus

In addition to an output Y(n) of an adding device, a dither output of a dither generating circuit is supplied to an adding device. The output Y(n) of the adding device is added to a bit that is one bit lower than the LSB of the shortest word length of the hardware (namely, the place of LSB/2). The output of the adding device is supplied to a delay device. In other words, when the shorter word length is 32 bits corresponding to the word length of the RAM of the delay device, the dither is added to the bit 33. In the data Y(n) to which the dither has been added, the low order bits thereof are truncated corresponding to the word length of the delay device. The resultant data is supplied as next timing output data Y'(n-1) to the delay device and stored therein.

IIR type digital filter

A method of self-diagnosis in a digital signal processing system. The digital signal processing system comprises a digital signal processing apparatus which includes a plurality of electronic components for processing signals in a plurality of channels. An output of the digital signal processing apparatus is coupled to an input of the digital signal processing apparatus. A central processing unit causes one after another of the electronic components to generate a predetermined signal while the other electronic parts are in a condition for passing the predetermined signal therethrough. The CPU then checks whether or not the output of the digital signal processing apparatus is correct. When the output of the digital signal processing apparatus is not correct, the central processing unit outputs a unique reference number for the electronic component from which the predetermined signal was then generated. The reference number for the electronic component is visually indicated on a bar graph meter.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Kazutoshi Nomoto