Electrical transmission or interconnection systems – Plural supply circuits or sources – Load current control
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-21
2002-10-01
Fleming, Fritz (Department: 2836)
Electrical transmission or interconnection systems
Plural supply circuits or sources
Load current control
C307S024000, C307S029000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06459171
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to power supplies and, more specifically, the present invention relates to power supplies drawing power from a plurality of sources.
2. Background Information
Loads may be required in certain applications to draw power from a plurality of power sources.
FIG. 1A
is an example of such a present day situation. As shown, a load
101
is operating from redundant power sources including primary power source
103
and secondary power source
105
. An example of the situation illustrated in
FIG. 1A
might be a satellite system operating from redundant power sources including a primary power source and at least one backup power source. If primary power source
103
fails, secondary power source
105
is switched to supply power to load
101
. In some situations, multiple secondary power sources
105
may be available for backup.
FIG. 1B
is a diagram of another present day situation in which multiple applications may share a device. For example, multiple tenants may share one of a plurality of common apartment building utility devices. As shown in
FIG. 1B
, applications
159
,
161
and
163
share shared device
151
. In the example shown in
FIG. 1B
, power source
153
is associated with application
159
, power source
155
is associated with application
161
and power source
157
is associated with application
163
. Shared device
151
is powered by a single power source
155
. Thus, in this situation, even though applications
159
,
161
and
163
all utilize shared device
151
, only one power source
155
is needed to supply power to shared device
151
. Assuming applications
159
,
161
and
163
correspond to different tenants in the apartment building, the tenants corresponding to applications
159
and
163
need to reimburse the tenant that corresponds to application
161
for their respective usage of shared device
151
.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A power sharing apparatus and method are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method of sharing power includes switchably coupling and decoupling each of a plurality of power sources to deliver at least a portion of power to a shared power supply. Each of the power sources corresponds to one of a plurality of applications. The method also includes adjusting the portion of power delivered by each one of the power sources to the shared power supply responsive to an amount of usage by the application corresponding to the respective power source. Additional features and benefits of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description, figures and claims set forth below.
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patent: 4618779 (1986-10-01), Wiscombe
patent: 4729086 (1988-03-01), Lethellier
patent: 4866295 (1989-09-01), Leventis et al.
patent: 5157269 (1992-10-01), Jordan et al.
patent: 5200643 (1993-04-01), Brown
patent: 5266838 (1993-11-01), Gerner
patent: 5428524 (1995-06-01), Massie
patent: 5672958 (1997-09-01), Brown et al.
patent: 5949153 (1999-09-01), Tison et al.
patent: 6150803 (2000-11-01), Varga
Arraycomm Inc.
Blakely , Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman LLP
Fleming Fritz
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