Apple Inc.

Blackberry Corporation

Liang Chen

Saining Ren

Adam L Schwartz

Zaki Moussaoui

Bharat K Patel

Antoin J Russell

Arunim Kumar

Ho Fai Leung

Zachary Strachan Harris

Ron Rafer C Floresca

Andrew Gray

Anshuman Tyagi

Gianpaolo Lisi

Stephen Christopher Terry

Rohan Dayal

Ye Li

Ron Rafer Floresca

Jerald Polestico Guillermo

Tao Wang

Gaurav Kalra

Bingyao Sun

A wireless power system can include a wireless power transmitter and a wireless power receiver. The transmitter can include a transmit coil, an inverter, and inverter control circuitry that can operate one or more switching devices of the inverter to communicate information to the receiver by controlling a delay between receipt of the burst request pulse and initiating operation of the inverter and/or controlling a polarity of a first pulse of the inverter. The receiver can include a receive coil magnetically coupled to the transmit coil, a rectifier, and rectifier control circuitry that initiates a burst request pulse to initiate operation of a transmitter. The rectifier control circuitry can operate one or more switching devices of the rectifier to communicate information to the transmitter by at least one of short circuiting an LC tank including the receive coil or controlling a polarity of the burst request pulse.

Wireless power transfer with integrated communications

An inductive power transmitter comprising: a converter configured to generate at least two object detection signals at substantially different frequencies, at least one transmitting coil configured to generate a magnetic field based on the object detection signals, and a controller configured to determine or measure circuit parameter(s) in relation to the coil to determine the inductance of the coil at each of the frequencies, and determine whether and/or what kind of object is present depending on a change in inductance between each of the frequencies.

Inductive power transmitter

An electronic device such as a portable electronic device has wireless power receiving circuitry. A vehicle has a vehicle remote keyless system that transmits beacons. A key receives the beacons and responds with key codes to unlock doors and enable a vehicle ignition in the vehicle. In the presence of wireless power transfer operations there is a risk that wireless power signals will interfere with the reception of the beacons by the key. To ensure that beacons are satisfactorily received, conditions in which there is a risk of interference are detected and corresponding interference mitigation operations are performed.

Wireless charging interference mitigation

A wireless power system has a wireless power transmitting device such as a charging puck and a wireless power receiving device such as a wristwatch. The charging puck may have a three-wire cable that is coupled between a connector and a puck housing. The wireless power transmitting device may have a set of four coils or other number of wireless power transmitting coils in the puck housing. A switch may be coupled in series with each of the four coils. Control circuitry in the wireless power transmitting device may activate a subset of the switches to switch a subset of the coils into use in transmitting the wireless power to the wireless power receiving device. The control circuitry may have a main portion in the connector that uses a tone-based encoding scheme or other encoding scheme to transmit switch configuration commands to a secondary portion in the puck housing.

Wireless power system cabling

An inductive power transmittercomprising: at least one power transmitting coilconfigured to generate an inductive power transfer (IPT) field, and an object detection (OD) systemconfigured to detect the presence of an object based on a change in energy decay or change in resonant frequency of a resonant circuit integrated with or coupled to the transmitting coil.

A wireless power system has a wireless power transmitting device and a wireless power receiving device. The wireless power transmitting device may be a wireless charging mat with one or more coils or may be a wireless charging puck with one or more coils. In some embodiments, the wireless charging puck may have six coils or other number of coils arranged in a ring. The wireless power receiving device may have an elongated magnetic core such as a C-shaped core with pillars at opposing ends. First and second coils may be formed on the pillars and a third coil may be formed between the first and second coils. The coils of the wireless power receiving device such as the first and second coils on the magnetic core may be configured to receive magnetic flux emitted by a pair of the six coils in the wireless charging puck.

Coils for wireless power systems

An inductive power transmittercomprising: a plurality of transmitter coils; a controllerconfigured to selectively energise the coilsin order to couple a receiver, the coilsselected being dependent on an orientation of the receiver, a power transfer optimisation algorithm, or a lookup table.

A wireless power transmitting device transmits wireless power signals to a wireless power receiving device using an output circuit that includes a wireless power transmitting coil. Measurement circuitry is coupled to the output circuit to help determine whether the wireless power receiving device is present and ready to accept transmission of wireless power. Oscillator circuitry for supplying signals to the output circuitry while making measurements with the measurement circuitry is coupled to the output circuit using an impedance injection network. The impedance injection network includes an inductor and a resistor coupled in series. Control circuitry opens a transistor in the output circuit when making measurements with the measurement circuitry and closes the transistor when transmitting the wireless power signals.

Wireless charging system having measurement circuitry with foreign object detection capabilities

An inductive power transfer assembly comprising a magnetic core having a base portion, a first limb, and a second limb, wherein the first limb and the second limb extend, in a direction, from a surface of the base portion a first power transfer coil and a second power transfer coil, wherein the first power transfer coil is wound about the first limb, and wherein the second power transfer coil is wound about the second limb; and inverter circuitry connected to the first power transfer coil and the second power transfer coil, wherein the inverter circuitry, during operation, causes the first power transfer coil and the second power transfer coil to generate flux having opposing polarity.

Inductive power transfer assembly

A wireless power transmitting device transmits wireless power signals to a wireless power receiving device using output circuitry that includes an array of wireless power transmitting coils that form a wireless charging surface. During wireless power transmission operations, wireless power signals are transmitted from the array of coils to a wireless power receiving device on the charging surface. Inductance measurement circuitry such as impulse response measurement circuitry and other measurement circuitry is coupled to the output circuitry. Control circuitry in the wireless power transmitting device analyzes signals from the measurement circuitry to produce two-dimensional signal profiles across the wireless charging surface and to compare patterns in these signal profiles to predetermined signal patterns associated with the presence of known power receiving equipment on the wireless charging surface. Based on the analysis, charging parameters may be adjusted or other actions taken.

Wireless charging system with object recognition

Systems and methods are disclosed that include determining a local node configuration for a local network node. The local network node configuration can include a local range and a local location. In addition, these systems and methods can include receiving a remote network node configuration for a remote network node via a communications link. The remote network node configuration can include a remote range and a remote location. Also these systems and methods can further include generating a neighbor list that includes the remote network node and the local network node. The neighbor list can be determined using the local network node configuration and the remote network node configuration.

Growing community of inventors

Auckland, New Zealand

Liang Chen