Earlier this month the US Patent & Trademark Office published a granted patent from Microsoft that relates to a smart battery for Ultrafast Charging that technically is designed for Surface tablet devices (with optional keyboards) laptops, netbooks and other devices including a smartphone.
With Microsoft holding a Surface hardware event this week, you have to wonder if this invention will have had enough time to work itself into their next-gen 2019 hardware.
Ultrafast Smart Battery Charging
Microsoft's invention relates to the charging of smart batteries. As such, improvements are needed corresponding to the rate of charging of batteries, and in particular, smart batteries. Conventional solutions for wireless charging smart batteries don't utilize more than one charging coil per battery and did not take into consideration the physical configuration of the charging coils of the smart battery.
Moreover, conventional solutions don't manage each battery module differently and independently from other battery modules of the smart battery system, thereby decreasing the functionality and flexibility of the smart battery.
Microsoft's methods and apparatuses may provide an efficient solution, as compared to conventional solutions, by providing ultrafast charging of a smart battery.
The present disclosure provides one or more mechanisms, including a battery management controller configured to manage one or more battery modules of the smart battery.
The one or more mechanisms also include a plurality of battery control boards connected to the battery management controller via an internal bus, wherein each of the plurality of battery control boards communicates with the other battery control boards and the battery management controller via the internal bus and a plurality of charging coils configured to receive power, transmitted by a transmitter, from a wireless signal based on the wireless signal coupling energy to at least one of the plurality of charging coils at a frequency as the at least one of the plurality of charging coils, wherein each of the plurality of charging coils connects to a respective one of the plurality of battery control boards.
Additionally, the one or more mechanisms also include at least one battery module, wherein each battery module contains a respective one of the plurality of battery control boards, and wherein each battery module is charged based on the power received by the plurality of charging coils connected to the respective ones of the plurality of battery control boards and a charging configuration signal transmitted by the battery management controller via the internal bus.
Further, the battery management controller configured to communicate to the transmitter via a short-range communication technology (e.g. NFC, Bluetooth, infrared, etc.), to transfer control information such as identification and configuration data, or alternatively communicate through load modulation of one or more of the plurality of charging coils.
Microsoft's patent FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an example architecture of a computing device including a smart battery configured; FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an example smart battery of the computer device of FIG. 1; and FIG. 8 is a flowchart of an example of a method of charging a smart battery.
Microsoft's granted patent that was published earlier this month by the U.S. Patent Office was filed back in Q1 2017. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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