US 9,541,299 B2 · Setting-independent climate regulator control

Abstract

Climate regulation within an enclosure (e.g., a server cabinet) may involve a climate regulator device that reports a set of available settings (e.g., fan speeds of a fan array) to a computational unit that selects among the available settings. However, such techniques involve bidirectional communication between the climate regulator device and a computational unit that is capable of utilizing the device-specific settings. Presented herein are climate regulation architectures involving a request from the computational unit as a climate target that is independent of the settings of the climate regulator devices (e.g., an selection on an arbitrary scale from 0 to 100). A climate regulator controller may map the device-independent climate target to a selection among the available settings of the particular climate regulator device(s). Further variations may involve conflict resolution among requests from different computational sub-units, and/or failsafe mechanisms such as default climate regulator device settings to alleviate controller failure.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method of controlling, using a processor of a computing device, a climate regulator device on behalf of a computational unit, the climate regulator device having at least two climate regulator settings, the method comprising:

executing, on the processor, instructions that cause the computing device to:
store a climate regulator map that identifies, for respective climate targets and among the at least two climate regulator settings of the climate regulator device, a selected climate regulator setting with which to operate the climate regulator device to provide a magnitude of climate regulation that satisfies the climate target;
and
responsive to receiving from the computational unit a climate target in a climate target set that are independent from the climate regulator settings provided by the climate regulator device:
using the climate regulator map, identifying, for the climate target and among the at least two climate regulator settings of the climate regulator device, a selected climate regulator setting of the climate regulator device with which to operate the climate regulator device to provide a magnitude of climate regulation that satisfies the climate target;
and
causing the climate regulator device to operate at the selected climate regulator setting.

4 more elements

A climate regulator for a computational unit, comprising:

a climate regulator device having at least two climate regulator settings;
a climate regulator map that identifies, for respective climate targets and among the at least two climate regulator settings of the climate regulator device, a selected climate regulator setting to provide a magnitude of climate regulation that satisfies the climate target;
and
a climate regulator controller that, responsive to receiving from the computational unit a climate target in a climate target set that is independent from the climate regulator settings provided by the climate regulator device, is configured to:
using the climate regulator map, identify, for the climate target and among the at least two climate regulator settings of the climate regulator device, a selected climate regulator setting of the climate regulator device with which to operate the climate regulator device to provide a magnitude of climate regulation that satisfies the climate target;
and
cause the climate regulator device to operate at the selected climate regulator setting.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Setting-independent climate regulator control

Life of this patent

Setting-independent climate regulator control

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20