The US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that reveals one of their latest inventions regarding a new display technology for charging wirelessly through a display panel and/or a wireless charging system. Our report presents you with four of Samsung's charging application examples over and above the tablet case that you can see presented in our cover graphic.
Touch Electrodes
Getting to the heart of the patent we're able to see Samsung patent figures 6B and 6C below. A touch electrode (#542) may include a plurality of first electrode cells 542a and a plurality of second electrode cells 54b. Electrode cells may be formed of a transparent conductive material such as an indium-tin-oxide (ITO).
According to Samsung, the panel driving unit (#320b, as shown in FIG. 6C) includes a display panel driving unit (#710) for driving the display panel and a touch panel driving unit (#720) for driving the touch pane. The switching unit (#340) selectively connects the touch electrode (#542K) to the touch panel driving unit of the panel driving unit or the rectifying unit (#410) of the power storage unit (#330).
Since the outermost electrode of the touch screen panel is the touch electrode, it may serve as an electrode for charging the display. The display device further includes a power storage unit configured to store received power, and a switching unit configured to electrically connect the at least one electrode to one of the panel driving unit and the power storage unit.
Samsung's Vision for Future Charging Applications
One of the applications noted in Samsung's patent filing includes a tablet PC cover being able to contain a wireless charging component. On this front there going to be in a race with Apple who filed for a patent covering this idea back in March 2013. Considering that Samsung considers themselves a fast follower, they may get this idea to market first. Then again, only time will tell.
Samsung filed their US patent application back in Q1 2014. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
Charging Multiple Power Receivers in a Wireless Environment
In a second wireless charging patent application that was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, Samsung reveals another angle for wireless charging. In this second patent application, Samsung's method includes detecting one or more power receivers present within a radio frequency range of a power transmitter, broadcasting a request for discovering each of the one or more power receivers, receiving a response for the request from the each of the one or more power receivers, transmitting a unicast confirmation to the one or more power receivers on receiving the response, and transmitting radiation to charge at least one of the one or more power receivers on receiving an acknowledgement from the one or more power receivers in response to the unicast confirmation.
In accordance with another aspect of Samsung's second invention, a wireless power charging system is provided. The wireless power charging system includes a power transmitter configured to charge one or more power receivers. The power transmitter includes a signal and control unit configured to detect the one or more power receivers present within a radio frequency range of a power transmitter, transmit a request for discovering each of the one or more power receivers, and determine whether a response is received from each of the one or more power receivers within a threshold response time. The wireless power charging system further includes a regulator unit connected to the signal and control unit to regulate an amount of radiation to be transmitted based on the number of power receivers that provided a response and a power conversion unit connected to the regulator unit to transmit energy to charge the one or more power receivers.
Samsung's patent FIG. 4 is schematic view of a communication mode between a power transmitter and a power receiver.
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