Patent Application Titled “Managing And Monitoring Car-Battery And Tires To Assure Safe Operation And Providing Arrival Ready Battery And Tire Services” Published Online (USPTO 20200376979)

2020 DEC 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventors Liang, Shwu-Jian (Taoyuan, TW); Lin, Bo-In (Los Altos Hills, CA), filed on July 21, 2020, was made available online on December 3, 2020.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “As there are more electrically powered vehicles including the hybrid types of vehicles that draw power partially from the batteries installed on a vehicle, the most challenging technical limitations are related the speed of recharging the batteries and the monitoring and maintenance of the health state and safe operations of the batteries. A driver of the electrically powered vehicle usually do not have time to wait for the prolong periods usually required to charge the batteries. Additionally, the health states of the batteries are critically important not only because the operation of the vehicle depends on the batteries but also the malfunctions of the batteries can cause hazards that may threaten the safety of the drivers and may further lead to public safety concerns.

“Even that the gas-electrical hybrid powered vehicles have less concerns for charging the batteries within a short period because the batteries are charged when the engine is powered by burning the gasoline fuel, however, the limited lifetime of the batteries and the health condition of the batteries would still be the important cost and safety factors to take into consideration in owning and operating the gas-electrical hybrid cars. Periodically monitoring the conditions of the battery and proper maintenance of the batteries are still important and good operational routines a vehicle owner should practice for economically and safely operating the vehicle.

“Additionally, limited energy storage in the battery is still limiting the total miles; an electrical car is able to travel before the total stored battery power is exhausted. Furthermore, even with improved charge techniques now explored and disclosed, the speed of charging up a battery for an electricity to continue the journey would still be too limiting compared to the time required a stop at a gas station to fill up the tank.

“Therefore, a need still exists in the field of vehicle battery and energy supply to provide a new and improved systems and methods to resolved all the above discussed difficulties and limitations.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “In one aspect, the present invention provides a battery exchange and/or lease system for a vehicle owner to make a stop at a battery refueling station when the battery on the car has already had a low capacity which can be quickly removed, and another battery that is fully charged is installed such that the battery ‘refueling’ process may be executed quickly without being limited by the speed of recharging the batteries. Instead of owning the batteries, the owner or operator of the car may just lease the batteries or use the energy stored in the batteries under different energy purchase agreements required to drive the car for certain distance.

“It is another aspect of this invention that each of the battery chargers or each of the batteries further includes a battery health state monitoring system. In a preferred embodiment, the system is implemented as an integrated circuit (IC) chip implemented with processes and functions for controlling certain sensing/measuring devices and also for receiving signals from these devices for continuously or periodically detecting designated operational or charging parameters of a battery as indicators for monitoring the conditions and providing diagnoses of any potential problems of the batteries.

“It is another aspect of this invention that the IC chip is implemented as a controlling-and-monitoring system on chip that includes detecting and monitoring functions on a battery charging device for measuring and monitoring the conditions of the battery in every battery charge operation. In a preferred embodiment, the controlling and-monitoring system on chip further includes a transmitter for transmitting signals to specific signal receivers through local area network (LAN) WiFi/Wide area network (WAN) WiMAX, and/or wired Internet such that the measured parameters as indicators of the conditions of the battery can be monitored and applied for safe operation optimally charging and maintaining the batteries in a safe and healthy condition

“In one preferred embodiment, this invention discloses a method to supply electrical energy to a vehicle. The method includes a step of setting up battery refueling stations on a roadside. The method further includes a step of a driver driving a vehicle to the refuel station for the refuel station to carry out a process of removing charge-depleted batteries from the vehicle and installing full charged battery for supplying power to the vehicle onto the vehicle such that a vehicle driver does not have to wait for a prolong battery recharge period. It may also be charged overnight at home with designated intelligent charger.

“In another embodiment, the present invention discloses a battery for providing energy to drive an engine of a vehicle. The battery further includes a controlling-and-monitoring system on chip implemented on an integrated circuit (IC) chip comprising sensing elements for detecting battery parameters indicating important conditions of the battery. In another embodiment, the controlling-and-monitoring system on chip that implemented on the IC chip further includes a transmitter for transmitting signals based on the battery parameters detected by the sensing elements (i.e., sensors). In another embodiment, this invention further includes a network for signal transmission for transmitting signals based on the battery parameters to a signal receiver for receiving, processing and monitoring the conditions of the battery.

“While the novel features of the invention are set forth with particularly in the appended claims, the invention, both as to organization and content, will be better understood and appreciated, along with other objects and features thereof, from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for managing rechargeable batteries to provide power to vehicles comprising: a battery health state monitoring sensor implemented as an integrated circuit (IC) chip on the rechargeable batteries for detecting and storing data of battery health state parameters on each of the vehicles having a transmitter to transmit the battery health state parameters as wireless signals; a battery management center includes a networked server to receive the battery health state parameters transmitted as the wireless signals to continuously collect the battery health management parameters from the plurality of rechargeable batteries; and the battery management center further categorizes the health management parameters into different categories according to a time sequence to perform statistical data analyses on the battery health management parameters collected for detecting an abnormal condition of a rechargeable battery.

“2. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery health state monitoring sensor implemented as the IC chip on the rechargeable batteries further detecting, storing and transmitting data of battery health state parameters including discharge current (Ad), discharging voltages (Vd), a charge time (Tc), and a discharge time (Td) during the intelligent charger charges the rechargeable batteries.

“3. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery health state monitoring sensor implemented as the IC chip on the rechargeable batteries further detecting, storing and transmitting data of operational environments surrounding the rechargeable battery including temperature and humidity variations, vehicle speed, vehicle acceleration and deceleration, and vehicle impacts.

“4. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery management center further receives, stores and analyzes man, machine, manufacture, method and environment (4E1M) parameters from vehicle manufacturers, battery pack assemblers, and battery cell manufacturers, and the battery management center further performs statistical process control methods (SPC) to analyze and correlate the aging and power supply performance to the 4E1M parameters of the rechargeable batteries.

“5. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery management center continuously collects and analyzes the battery health management parameters for detecting the abnormal condition of a rechargeable battery and the battery management center sends a warning message to a charge state or a vehicle driver when the abnormal condition of a rechargeable battery is detected.

“6. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery management center continuously collect and analyzes the battery health management parameters from the plurality of batteries for detecting the abnormal condition of a rechargeable battery and the battery management center sends a message to a battery pack supplier with necessary data of the abnormal condition for resolving technical issues that cause the abnormal condition.

“7. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery management center continuously collects and analyzes the battery health management parameters from the plurality batteries for maintaining and continuously monitoring conditions of each of the rechargeable batteries and the battery management center sends the battery health management parameters to a battery pack supplier, a battery manufacturer, an insurance company, a highway safety agency and an automaker as commercially or technically required.

“8. The system of claim 1 wherein: the battery management center continuously collects and analyzes the battery health management parameters from the plurality batteries for maintaining and continuously monitoring conditions of each of the rechargeable batteries and the battery management center applies the battery health management parameters and the conditions of a plurality of the rechargeable batteries to certify and classify the rechargeable batteries into different categories.

“9. The system of claim 4 wherein: the battery management center further receives, stores and analyzes performance differences between different battery cells for each of the batteries for correlating the performance differences to the 4M1E parameters among different manufacturing lots.

“10. The system of claim 1 further comprising: a plurality of charging stations each includes at least an intelligent battery charger for charging the rechargeable batteries; the intelligent battery chargers further comprises a battery diagnostic detector for detecting and storing data of designated battery health management parameters; and the intelligent tire service station further comprises a transmitter for transmitting the data of designated tire health management parameters as wireless signals to a networked server in a tire management center wherein the tire management center continuously collects tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations and categorizes the health management parameters into different categories according to a time sequence to perform statistical data analyses on the tire health management parameters collected for detecting an abnormal condition of a tire.

“11. The system of claim 10 wherein: at least one of the plurality of charging stations includes at least an ready for immediate replacement battery for replacing one the rechargeable batteries operated on one of the vehicles.

“12. The system of claim 4 wherein: the battery management center further receives, stores and analyzes performance differences between different battery cells for each of the batteries for correlating the performance differences to the 4M1E parameters among different manufacturing lots and the battery management center further provides relevant data and information with early detection of defective batch predictions to vehicle makers, battery cell makers, battery pack makers for taking corrective and preventive measures.

“13. A system for monitoring and managing tires mounted to a vehicle comprising: a plurality of tire service stations each includes at least an intelligent tire service station for providing services to the tires; the intelligent tire service station further comprises a tire diagnostic detector for detecting and storing data of designated tire health management parameters; and the intelligent tire service station further comprises a transmitter for transmitting the data of designated tire health management parameters as wireless signals to a networked server in a tire management center wherein the tire management center continuously collects tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations and categorizes the health management parameters into different categories according to a time sequence to perform statistical data analyses on the tire health management parameters collected for detecting an abnormal condition of a tire.

“14. The system of claim 13 wherein: the tire further comprise a tire health state monitoring sensor implemented as an integrated circuit (IC) chip on the tire for detecting and storing data of tire health state parameters including tire pressure variations, tire strain and stress, and tire thickness and variations of tire thickness.

“15. The system of claim 13 wherein: the tire management center continuously collects the tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations including tire thickness and uniformity of tire thickness of a plurality of tires from a same production lot for detecting the abnormal condition of a tire.

“16. The system of claim 13 wherein: the tire management center continuously collects and analyzes the tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations for detecting the abnormal condition of a tire and the tire management center sends a warning message to a service station or a vehicle driver when the abnormal condition of a tire is detected.

“17. The system of claim 13 further comprises: the tire management center continuously collects and analyzes the tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations for detecting the abnormal condition of a tire and the tire management center sends a message to a tire supplier with necessary data of the abnormal condition for resolving technical issues that cause the abnormal condition.

“18. The system of claim 13 wherein: the tire management center continuously collects and analyzes the tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations for maintaining and continuously monitoring conditions of each of tie tires and the tire management center sends the tire health management parameters to a tire supplier, a tire manufacturer, an insurance company, a highway safety agency and an automaker as commercially or technically required.

“18. The system of claim 13 wherein: the tire management center continuously collects and analyzes the tire health management parameters from the plurality of tire service stations for maintaining and continuously monitoring conditions of each of the tires and the tire management center applies the tire health management parameters and the conditions of a plurality of the tires to certify and classify the tires into different categories.

“20. The system of claim 13 wherein: each of the tires further includes an RFID as an identity that is electronically identifiable by the intelligent tire service station and the tire management center.”

For more information, see this patent application: Liang, Shwu-Jian; Lin, Bo-In. Managing And Monitoring Car-Battery And Tires To Assure Safe Operation And Providing Arrival Ready Battery And Tire Services. Filed July 21, 2020 and posted December 3, 2020. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220200376979%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20200376979&RS=DN/20200376979

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