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US 12,617,299 B2Granted
Flexible battery system for a vehicle
AssigneeKitty Hawk Corporation
InventorsJoseph Orender, Christopher Scott Saunders, Derek Wong
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A configuration instruction associated with configuring a plurality of batteries which supply power to a plurality of motors in a vehicle is received. The batteries are configuring as specified by the configuration instruction, where the batteries are able to be configured in a plurality of configurations, including: a first configuration where at least some of the batteries are electrically connected together in parallel and a second configuration where at least some of the batteries are electrically connected together in series.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- a plurality of batteries which supply power to a plurality of motors in a vehicle, wherein a first subset of the plurality of batteries is configured to power at least a first subset of the plurality of motors and a second subset of the plurality of batteries is configured to power at least a second subset of the plurality of motors;
- and
- a battery configuration controller that is configured to:
- determine a flight plan including a time associated with the vehicle being in a particular flight mode during the flight plan;
- predict a load of at least one of the plurality of motors based at least on a comparison of real-time conditions with at least one of:
- a direction or a velocity of the vehicle;
- receive a configuration instruction associated with configuring the plurality of batteries, wherein the configuration instruction is generated in response to the predicted load of at least one of the plurality of motors;
- and
- configure the plurality of batteries as specified by the configuration instruction to:
- provide those motors of the plurality of motors with predicted loads above a threshold to have in-series batteries, and
- provide those motors of the plurality of motors with predicted loads not above a threshold to have in-parallel batteries, wherein the in-parallel batteries are electrically independent from the in-series batteries.
8 more elements
A method, comprising:
- determining a flight plan including a time associated with the vehicle being in a particular flight mode during the flight plan;
- predicting a load of at least one of a plurality of motors based at least on a comparison of real-time conditions with at least one of:
- a direction or a velocity of a vehicle;
- receiving a configuration instruction associated with configuring a plurality of batteries, wherein the configuration instruction is generated in response to the predicted load of at least one of the plurality of motors, wherein:
- the plurality of batteries supply power to the plurality of motors in the vehicle,
- a first subset of the plurality of batteries is configured to power at least a first subset of the plurality of motors, and
- a second subset of the plurality of batteries is configured to power at least a second subset of the plurality of motors;
- and
- configuring the plurality of batteries as specified by the configuration instruction to:
- provide those motors of the plurality of motors with predicted loads above a threshold to have in-series batteries;
- and
- provide those motors of the plurality of motors with predicted loads not above a threshold to have in-parallel batteries, wherein the in-parallel batteries are electrically independent from the in-series batteries.
9 more elements
A computer program product, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:
- determining a flight plan including a time associated with the vehicle being in a particular flight mode during the flight plan;
- predicting a load of at least one of a plurality of motors based at least on a comparison of real-time conditions with at least one of:
- a direction or a velocity of a vehicle;
- receiving a configuration instruction associated with configuring a plurality of batteries, wherein the configuration instruction is generated in response to the predicted load of at least one of a plurality of motors, wherein:
- the plurality of batteries supply power to the plurality of motors in the vehicle,
- a first subset of the plurality of batteries is configured to power at least a first subset of the plurality of motors, and
- a second subset of the plurality of batteries is configured to power at least a second subset of the plurality of motors;
- and
- configuring the plurality of batteries as specified by the configuration instruction to:
- provide those motors of the plurality of motors with predicted loads above a threshold to have in-series batteries, and
- provide those motors of the plurality of motors with predicted loads not above a threshold to have in-parallel batteries, wherein the in-parallel batteries are electrically independent from the in-series batteries.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.