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US 8,412,486 B2Granted
Power converter remaining life estimation
AssigneeThe University of Hong Kong
InventorsMan Hay Pong, Hon Man Pang
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Subject matter disclosed herein may relate to monitoring and/or estimating remaining life for a power converter.
Claims29
An apparatus, comprising:
- a current control mode power converter to generate a switching current signal, said current control mode power converter comprising a capacitor;
- a current sampling unit to sample the switching current signal at the capacitor, the current sampling unit to generate a digitized waveform for the sampled signal;
- a computation unit to estimate a remaining life of the current control mode power converter based at least in part on the sampled waveform;
- and
- an output unit to receive an output signal from the computation unit and to generate an analog signal representing the estimated remaining life of the current control mode power converter.
2 more elements
A method, comprising:
- sampling, utilizing a sampling circuit, a signal from a power converter, the power converter including a capacitor;
- generating a digitized waveform for the sampled signal;
- and
- estimating a remaining life of the power converter based at least in part on the digitized waveform;
- and
- generating an analog signal representing the estimated remaining life of the power converter.
3 more elements
An article, comprising:
- a storage medium having stored thereon instructions executable by a computing platform to:
- sample a signal from a power converter, the power converter including a capacitor;
- generate a digitized waveform for the sampled signal;
- estimate a remaining life of the power converter based at least in part on the digitized waveform;
- and
- generate an analog signal representing the estimated remaining life of the power converter.
3 more elements
An apparatus to digitize a repetitive signal having a time cycle, comprising:
- an input terminal to accept a repetitive analog electrical signal from a power converter;
- a sample and hold circuit having a switch coupled to the input terminal to periodically sample the repetitive analog electrical signal according to a sampling time;
- a capacitor coupled to an output of the sample and hold circuit to maintain a voltage from the sampled analog electrical signal;
- an analog-to-digital converter coupled to the capacitor to generate a set of digital information signals according to the voltage from the sampled analog electrical signal;
- a computation unit to receive the set of digital information signals and to store said digital information signals in a memory, said computation unit to estimate a remaining life of a power converter based at least in part on the set of digital information signals;
- and
- a trigger unit to trigger the sample and hold circuit at least in part in response to receiving a command from the computation unit.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.