Low power, high resolution position encoder for motorized window covering
AssigneeHarmonic Design, Inc.
InventorsDouglas R. Domel, Winston G. Walker
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A motorized window covering has a motor and a housing that holds the motor and a dc battery. When the motor is energized to move a window covering, a pulse detector counts the motor current pulses to determine the position of the window covering. A user can save a motor current pulse count corresponding to a desired position and then return the desired position from a different position by simply pressing a button on a remote control unit. Further, inaccuracies caused by motor current pulses that were not counted by the pulse detector, e.g., at start up, at shut down, or during coast down, are minimized by error correction logic.
Claims18
A method for controlling a motorized window covering, comprising the acts of:
- providing a counter;
- establishing a user-defined position of the window covering;
- in response to a user generated signal, energizing a motor coupled to the window covering;
- counting pulses of the motor using the counter;
- based on the counting act, determining when the window covering reaches the user-defined position;
- periodically moving the window covering to a hard stop;
- and
- resetting the counter to zero.
A motorized window covering, comprising:
- a window covering;
- an actuator coupled to the window covering, the actuator being used to move the window covering;
- a motor coupled to the actuator;
- and
- a pulse detector electrically connected to the motor, the pulse detector counting pulses of the motor when the motor is energized and periodically being reset to a zero value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.