Door assembly having rechargeable battery, methods and system for charging the battery
OwnerAlex BODURKAinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates to exterior or interior doors for residential or commercial buildings, such as for a home, apartment, condominium, hotel room or business, and, more particularly, to a door provided with a rechargeable battery as a source of electrical power that may be used to operate electric devices mounted to the door. The door has electric devices attached thereto. The electric devices which. are powered by one or more rechargeable batteries that are charged by one or more energy harvester systems and/or by direct connection to a power source. A system for distributing the power collected from the energy harvester system and/or the wired connection are also provided.
Claims28
A door assembly comprising:
- a door;
- a plurality of energy harvester systems, each energy harvester system comprising an energy harvester and a power regulator, the energy harvesters configured to simultaneously convert different types of external energy sources into electrical energy, and the power regulators are configured to condition the electrical energy from the energy harvesters;
- an energy source selector module configured to combine harvested energy from the plurality of energy harvester systems;
- a controller configured to enable and disable individual energy harvester systems from among the plurality of energy harvester systems based on energy availability and battery charging requirements;
- a plurality of receiving antennas positioned at different locations on the door;
- a power receiver electrically connected to the plurality of receiving antennas and configured to optimize power collection from the plurality of receiving antennas based on transmitter location;
- a motor-operated door panel configured to selectively cover and expose a solar energy harvester;
- and
- optical sensors configured to detect available sunlight,
- wherein the controller is configured to automatically control the motor-operated door panel based on sunlight detection to expose the solar energy harvester when sunlight is available and cover the solar energy harvester when sunlight is not available.
A door system comprising:
- a door having one or more electrical devices mounted thereto;
- a rechargeable battery system;
- a controller having power management logic configured to monitor battery status and control power distribution;
- a communication interface configured to transmit battery status and device operation data to a remote system via wireless communication;
- battery chargers each comprising a charging circuit configured to regulate charging current and report battery status to the controller;
- and
- battery protection circuits configured to prevent overcurrent, undercurrent, overvoltage, undervoltage, overcharge, deep discharge, and temperature extremes,
- wherein the controller is configured to communicate with one or more electric devices or external systems via at least one communication protocol selected from CAN, Ethernet, and serial communication.
A method of configuring a door assembly for energy harvesting, comprising:
- providing a door having a plug-n-play interface disposed therein;
- selecting, by a controller, one or more energy harvester systems from a group consisting of an RF and electromagnetic wave energy harvester, a solar energy harvester, and a mechanical energy harvester based on available external energy sources at an installation location;
- connecting the selected one or more energy harvester systems to the plug-n-play interface of the door;
- automatically detecting, by the controller, a presence of the connected one or more energy harvester systems via signals on the plug-n-play interface;
- removing a first energy harvester system from the plug-n-play interface;
- and
- connecting a different, second energy harvester system to the plug-n-play interface to adapt to changed energy source availability.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.