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:
Nov. 04, 2014
Filed:
May. 29, 2012
Jos C. Goble, Mountain View, CA (US);
Salomon J. Trujillo, Redwood City, CA (US);
Benjamin D. Sumers, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Christopher O. Perkins, Cupertino, CA (US);
Jos C. Goble, Mountain View, CA (US);
Salomon J. Trujillo, Redwood City, CA (US);
Benjamin D. Sumers, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Christopher O. Perkins, Cupertino, CA (US);
QBotix, Inc., Menlo Park, CA (US);
Abstract
A solar tracking system and method that use a shielding tube that admits solar radiation and has an absorptive inner surface for absorbing the solar radiation that is incident on it. The system has a photodetector for generating a signal related to an intensity of solar radiation at a distal end of the shielding tube and a scan unit for periodically executing a certain scan pattern in an elevation angle El and in an azimuth angle Az of the shielding tube. A processing unit in communication with the photodetector determines an on-sun orientation of the shielding tube based on a convolution of the signal obtained while executing the scan pattern with a trained convolution kernel. The on-sun orientation thus found can be used to update the orientation of one or more solar surfaces, e.g., reflective or photovoltaic surfaces.