The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 10, 2001
Filed:
May. 11, 1999
Kevin E. Lerow, Lowell, MA (US);
Albert M. Heyman, Bedford, MA (US);
Kevin J. Donegan, Merrimack, NY (US);
SatCon Technology Corporation, Cambridge, MA (US);
Abstract
A charging system has an alternator, a battery, and a controlled rectifier bridge between the alternator and the battery. The controlled rectifier bridge has controllable elements. A controller is provided wherein the controller controls (a) the duty cycle of the alternator field winding and (b) the switching in the controllable elements to control the phase advance angle. By utilizing a half-wave controlled rectifier bridge and three controllable elements, power output can be increased at a low overall cost. In another embodiment, the controller determines switching points for the controllable elements through a third harmonic extraction device which employs a neural network for determining the zero crossings of the third harmonic voltage obtained from a single phase voltage.