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US-12617562-B2 - Apparatus, system, and method of charging a battery of an aerial vehicle

US12617562B2US 12617562 B2US12617562 B2US 12617562B2US-12617562-B2

Abstract

An apparatus may include a processor configured to process photodiode signal information, which corresponds to a plurality of photodiodes of an aerial vehicle, for example, to identify a plurality of electric currents, which may be generated by the plurality of photodiodes based on energy of a light beam to charge a battery of the aerial vehicle. The processor may be configured to determine a vehicle-position displacement to displace the aerial vehicle based on the plurality of electric currents. The vehicle-position displacement may be configured to adjust a photodiode-beam relative position of the plurality of photodiodes relative to the light beam. The apparatus may include an output to provide position displacement information based on the vehicle-position displacement.

Inventors

  • Yakov Roizin
  • Evgeny Pikhay
  • Niv MIZRAHI

Assignees

  • TOWER SEMICONDUCTOR LTD.

Dates

Publication Date
20260505
Application Date
20240307

Claims (20)

  1. 1 . An apparatus comprising: a processor configured to: process photodiode signal information, which corresponds to a plurality of photodiodes of an aerial vehicle, to identify a plurality of electric currents, which are generated by the plurality of photodiodes based on energy of a light beam to charge a battery of the aerial vehicle; and determine a vehicle-position displacement to displace the aerial vehicle based on the plurality of electric currents, the vehicle-position displacement to adjust a photodiode-beam relative position of the plurality of photodiodes relative to the light beam; and an output to provide position displacement information based on the vehicle-position displacement.
  2. 2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on a mapping between the plurality of electric currents and a plurality of photodiode positions of the plurality of photodiodes.
  3. 3 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on a difference between a first electric current magnitude mapped to a first photodiode position and a second electric current magnitude mapped to a second photodiode location, and based on a displacement between the first photodiode position and the second photodiode position.
  4. 4 . The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a magnitude of the vehicle-position displacement based on the difference between the first electric current magnitude and the second electric current magnitude.
  5. 5 . The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a direction of the vehicle-position displacement based on the displacement between the first photodiode position and the second photodiode position.
  6. 6 . The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a direction of the vehicle-position displacement based on a sign of the difference between the first electric current magnitude and the second electric current magnitude.
  7. 7 . The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a first vehicle-position displacement based on a first difference between the first electric current magnitude and the second electric current magnitude, and to determine a second vehicle-position displacement based on a second difference between the first electric current magnitude and the second electric current magnitude, wherein the first difference is different from the second difference, the second vehicle-position displacement is different from the first vehicle-position displacement.
  8. 8 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a photodiode-beam relative position adjustment to adjust the photodiode-beam relative position based on the mapping between the plurality of electric currents and the plurality of photodiode positions, and to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on the photodiode-beam relative position adjustment.
  9. 9 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on a geometrical arrangement of the plurality of photodiode positions.
  10. 10 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on a comparison between magnitudes of two or more of the plurality of electric currents.
  11. 11 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on a distribution of magnitudes of the plurality of electric currents.
  12. 12 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a first vehicle-position displacement based on a first plurality of electric currents, and to determine a second vehicle-position displacement based on a second plurality of electric currents, wherein the second vehicle-position displacement is different from the first vehicle-position displacement, and the second plurality of electric currents is different from the first plurality of electric currents.
  13. 13 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement based on a comparison between a total current of the plurality of electric currents and a target charging current of the battery.
  14. 14 . The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement to increase the total current of the plurality of electric currents based on a determination that the total current is lower than the target charging current.
  15. 15 . The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle-position displacement to reduce the total current of the plurality of electric currents based on a determination that the total current is higher than the target charging current.
  16. 16 . The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the target charging current according to a charging profile to charge the battery based on a State Of Charge (SOC) of the battery.
  17. 17 . The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the processor is configured to, based on a determination that the target charging current comprises a maximal current, determine the vehicle-position displacement to adjust the photodiode-beam relative position such that the light beam substantially equally illuminates the plurality of photodiodes.
  18. 18 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of photodiodes comprises at least three photodiodes.
  19. 19 . The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the plurality of photodiodes.
  20. 20 . The apparatus of claim 19 comprising a light receiver Silicon Integrated Circuit (SIC) configured to harvest the energy of the light beam, wherein the light receiver SIC comprises the plurality of photodiodes.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD Aspects described herein generally relate to charging a battery of an aerial vehicle. BACKGROUND An aerial vehicle, e.g., a drone, may include a battery, which may be configured to provide electric power to the aerial vehicle. Battery resources of the battery may be limited and, accordingly, it may be required to charge the battery of the aerial vehicle. In some implementations, the battery of the aerial vehicle may be charged, for example, by connecting the aerial vehicle to a battery charger on the ground. However, this implementation may not be efficient, as it may require the aerial vehicle to land on the ground. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS For simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity of presentation. Furthermore, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements. The figures are listed below. FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustration of an aerial device, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of components of an aerial device, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. FIG. 3 is a schematic flow-chart illustration of a method of determining a vehicle position displacement to displace an aerial vehicle, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of a graph depicting output currents of a photodiode, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration of an aerial device, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. FIG. 6 is a schematic flow-chart illustration of a method of charging a battery of an aerial vehicle, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. FIG. 7 is a schematic illustration of a product of manufacture, in accordance with some demonstrative aspects. DETAILED DESCRIPTION In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of some aspects. However, it will be understood by persons of ordinary skill in the art that some aspects may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components, units and/or circuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the discussion. Discussions herein utilizing terms such as, for example, “processing”, “computing”, “calculating”, “determining”, “establishing”, “analyzing”, “checking”, or the like, may refer to operation(s) and/or process(es) of a computer, a computing platform, a computing system, or other electronic computing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented as physical (e.g., electronic) quantities within the computer's registers and/or memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer's registers and/or memories or other information storage medium that may store instructions to perform operations and/or processes. The terms “plurality” and “a plurality”, as used herein, include, for example, “multiple” or “two or more”. For example, “a plurality of items” includes two or more items. References to “one aspect”, “an aspect”, “demonstrative aspect”, “various aspects” etc., indicate that the aspect(s) so described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but not every aspect necessarily includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Further, repeated use of the phrase “in one aspect” does not necessarily refer to the same aspect, although it may. As used herein, unless otherwise specified the use of the ordinal adjectives “first”, “second”, “third” etc., to describe a common object, merely indicate that different instances of like objects are being referred to, and are not intended to imply that the objects so described must be in a given sequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner. The phrases “at least one” and “one or more” may be understood to include a numerical quantity greater than or equal to one, e.g., one, two, three, four, [ . . . ], etc. The phrase “at least one of” with regard to a group of elements may be used herein to mean at least one element from the group consisting of the elements. For example, the phrase “at least one of” with regard to a group of elements may be used herein to mean one of the listed elements, a plurality of one of the listed elements, a plurality of individual listed elements, or a plurality of a multiple of individual listed elements. The terms “substrate” and/or “wafer”, as used herein, may relate to a thin slice of semiconductor material, for example, a silicon crystal, which may be used in fabrication of integrated circuits and/or any other microelectronic devices. For example, the wafer may serve as the substrate for the microelectronic devices, which may be built in and o