Patently Speaking highlights the technological achievements of Fort Wayne area residents.
Battery pack management strategy in a hybrid electric motor vehicle
•U.S. Patent No. 7,904,217
•Invented by: Stanton E. Miller, Fort Wayne
•Assigned to International Truck Intellectual Property Co. LLC, Warrenville, Ill.
Hybrid vehicles have been around for quite some time. We are all familiar with the Toyota Prius and Chevy Volt, but larger commercial vehicles are now getting into the act as well.
Commercial vehicles such as large trucks now include both diesel fuel and electric motors. Electric-driven motors on utility trucks run a variety of electrical components. For example, refrigeration systems on refrigeration trucks now run on batteries rather than diesel power.
Unlike passenger vehicles, which only need battery-powered motors to run their engines, these commercial vehicles also need to run this extra “stuff.” But this takes a lot of extra power. Prior battery systems apparently just supplied electricity to whatever was being used on the vehicle at the time. This caused the batteries to drain relatively quickly.
This patent describes a power management system for these commercial trucks that allows the operator to dictate how the power should be allocated. There is a “maintain charge to job site” mode with limited battery use during travel so there will be sufficient battery charge once reaching the job site. A “maximized fuel economy” mode would apply battery power to the drive motor thereby reducing fuel consumption while the truck is moving. The mode chosen depends on which mode is needed for a particular application.
System and method for ensuring proper medical instrument use in an operating room
•U.S. Patent No. 7,896,869
•Invented by Mark R. DiSilvestro and Terry Dietz, Columbia City; and Jason T. Sherman and Robert Hastings of Warsaw
Assigned to DePuy Products Inc., Warsaw
Surgical procedures can be very complicated. Indeed, as we’ve seen before in this column, computers now assist several surgical procedures. An objective of these computers is making the surgical procedures, particularly complex ones, a bit easier. Part and parcel with complex surgeries is all the different instruments used to perform them – several of which have been discussed in this column as well.
This new patent describes a system of managing all those instruments during surgery. Using transmitters in the instruments themselves and an overhead video camera, a computer identifies the instruments used for a particular procedure. Each instrument is visually identified for the surgeon.
The order in which the instrument is used is also provided. In fact, this system can detect the instrument being used, determine its start and end times and visually queue up the next instrument. This allows the surgeon to focus on the operation rather than finding the next instrument.
The preceding are lay descriptions of patents obtained from the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s public records and are provided for general information purposes only. Nothing contained herein is a legal description of any claimed invention, identification of novelty, or offer of legal advice. Because issued patents are based on applications often filed years earlier, the subject matter of some patents may have been available on the market for some time prior to the issuance of the patent. Additional information on these patents is available at www.uspto.gov.
