3197results about How to "Improve energy consumption" patented technology

A prosthetic leg having an electronically controlled regenerative prosthetic knee. In certain embodiments of the present invention the knee may be passive, whereby it is used only to generate electrical energy. In other embodiments, the knee may be active, whereby it can be used to assist with or completely control gait, as well as to generate electrical energy. The knee makes use of an actuator motor/generator to control gait and/or to generate electrical energy. An electronic control system is provided to control overall operation of the prosthetic leg, to distribute generated electrical energy, and to transfer excess electrical energy to one or more storage devices for later use. A prosthetic leg of the present invention having an active prosthetic knee may be especially helpful in assisting an amputee with activities that impart a high torque load to the knee joint.

The present invention provides a novel SCD inhibitor. An SCD inhibitor containing a compound represented by the formula [I]

wherein ring A is an optionally substituted aromatic ring, ring B is an optionally substituted ring, ring C is an optionally substituted aromatic ring, R is a hydrogen atom, an optionally substituted hydrocarbon group or an optionally substituted heterocyclic group, and X is a spacer having 1 to 5 atoms in the main chain, or a salt thereof, or a prodrug thereof.

A multi-axis adjustable exercise machine which is pivotable about both a pitch axis and a roll axis with respect to a base for allowing an exerciser to perform a wide range of exercises on a pitched or rolled exercise machine. The multi-axis adjustable exercise machine generally includes an exercise machine which is adjustable with respect to a base. The exercise machine may be pivoted about a roll axis to adjust the roll angle of the exercise machine or may be pivoted about a pitch axis to adjust the pitch angle of the exercise machine. One or more actuators may be connected between the base and the exercise machine to effectuate the pivoting of the exercise machine about either or both axes with respect to the base.

Structures based upon periodic cellular materials that provide a potential for defeating combinations of both air blast loading and ballistic attack either sequentially or simultaneously, or combination of both. The cellular structures may also be configured to meet the stiffness and strength support requirements of particular vehicle or other applications, systems or structures. The armor is therefore potentially able to support normal service loads and defeat blast and ballistic threats when necessary. The structure provides for using efficient load support capabilities of the material (without a high armor protection level) in low threat conditions, as well as the ability to modify the system to increase its level protection to a desired or required level. This would reduce the weight of the protection system in normal (low threat) conditions which reduces vehicle wear and tear, as well as cost savings in fabrication of applicable structures or systems.

A crash attenuator for protecting a truck or stationary structure from damage resulting from impact of an object such as a vehicle including a frame mountable to a truck or stationary structure, a bumper having an impact-receiving face adapted to receive an impact from an object in a crash, a movable displacement structure coupled to the frame and interposed between the frame and the bumper and having a first position in which the bumper is relatively distant from the frame and a second position in which the bumper is relatively proximate to the frame, and an energy dissipation system coupled to the displacement structure for dissipating the impact energy of the object into the bumper which causes said displacement structure to be moved from the first position toward the second position.

An optimal thermal seawater desalination process is disclosed, which combines two or more substantially different water pretreatment processes in a unique manner and in a special configuration, hereto unknown to prior desalination arts, to produce a high yield of high quality fresh water, including potable water. In this process a two stage NF membrane pretreatment unit (NF₂) with an energy recovery turbo charger (TC) device in between the stages or equipped with an energy recovery pressure exchanger (PX) is synergistically combined with at least one thermal desalination unit to form a dual hybrid of NF₂-Thermal (FIG. 4 ), or alternatively the two stage NF₂ unit is synergistically combined with a two stage SWRO unit (SWRO₂) with an energy recovery TC in between the stages or combined with one stage SWRO (SWRO₁) equipped with an energy recovery TC or PX system and the reject from the SWRO₂ or SWRO₁ unit is made make-up to a thermal unit to form a tri-hybrid of NF₂-SWRO_{2 reject}-Thermal (FIG. 5 ). In both the cases of di- or trihybrids the thermal unit is equivalent to a multistage flash distillation (MSFD) or multieffect distillation (MED) or vapor compression distillation (VCD) or thermal reheat (RH) evaporator. Typically a process of this invention using the two stage NF₂ initial pretreatment step will perform a semi-desalination step by reducing feed TDS by about 35 to 50%, but most important, especially to the thermal seawater desalination process, it removes the water recovery limiting, scale forming hardness ions of Ca⁺⁺ and Mg⁺⁺ by better than 80% and their covalent anions of sulfate to better than 95% and bicarbonate to about 65%. The removal of scale forming hardness ions, especially SO₄⁼, and bicarbonates allowed for the operation of thermal unit in the above hybrids at top brine temperature (TBT) much greater than its present TBT limit by the singular conventional process of 120° C. for MSFD and operation of MED or VCD or RH unit at TBT much higher than their present TBT limit of 65-70° C., with many advantages gained by this process over prior art sweater desalination processes. The process of this invention exceeds all prior thermal seawater desalination arts in efficiency, including water yield, product water recovery ratio and unit water cost as well as in energy consumption per unit product which is equivalent or less than other efficient prior art seawater thermal desalination processes. By this process, an NF product recovery ratio of 75 and 80% or better is achieved from the high salinity Gulf sea (TDS≈45,000 ppm) and about an equal product recovery ratio is also obtained from the SWRO or thermal unit when it is operated on NF product for a total water recovery ratio in excess of 52% for seawater

This invention relates to a method and controller (1) for optimising energy consumption in a building. More specifically, the present invention describes a method and controller (1) for use in a building having a building management system (BMS) (3). Typically, the BMS (3) has sensors distributed throughout the building to determine the environmental conditions in the building and the BMS controls a heating/cooling system of the building.

In a method and device for detecting the intake of food in a subject at least one parameter related to the blood flow and/or perfusion of a blood vessel and/or an organ in the digestive system of a patient is monitored by a sensor attached to, or in, a blood vessel or organ of the digestive system. The value of each monitored parameter is analyzed and may be used to control the activity of a gastric stimulator.

A medium access control (MAC) technique of a multihop sensor network. In the multihop sensor network, the MAC technique may contribute to significantly reducing transmission delay, and allow real-time services to be provided to all nodes by extending a guaranteed time slot (GTS) restricted to one hop in a personal area network (PAN) coordinator (PNC) to all nodes. Furthermore, the MAC technique may allow the number of available GTSs to be significantly increased, by using all 16 frequency band channels instead of using only a single frequency band and setting a multi-superframe.

The invention discloses a thermoplastic light compound plate and the manufacturing method, characterized in that it comprises acupuncture fiber carpet dipped in double faced foam of thermoplastic glue liquid and thermoplastic glue liquid layer coated on the surface, the density of compound plate is 0.35-0.90g/cm3, the weight of fiber scattered in bunchiness is 15-45% of acupuncture fiber carpet. The merit of invention is very remarkable. Special super long fiber and bunchiness fiber with certain proportion are maintained in the material so that the mechanical performance of material can be improved. In addition, the material is provided with foam structure, very good effect of heat and sound insulation. The invention is also provided with environmental protection and recovery.

The invention discloses a starting power generation system for an electric automobile, which comprises a double salient pole starting power generator, a starting power generation controller and controller working power; the starting power generation controller comprises a bidirectional power conversion circuit, an exciting current detection unit, an output current detection unit, an output voltage detection unit, a position rotation speed detection unit, an armature current detection unit, an exciting main circuit and a digital signal processor, wherein the exciting main circuit includes an exciting relay, a rectification filter unit and a chopper circuit which are connected in series in turn; and the digital signal processor is connected with the exciting current detection unit, the output current detection unit, the output voltage detection unit, the armature current detection unit, the position rotation speed detection unit, and the control ends of the bidirectional power conversion circuit, the exciting relay and the rectification filter unit by signals respectively. The invention also discloses an electric automobile and a control method thereof. Compared with the prior art, the starting power generation system is simple in structure, low in cost and flexible to control.

A cold-storage appliance comprises an open-topped insulating container defining an external surface, an insulating lid adapted to close the open top of the container, a cooling means adapted to cool the interior but not the exterior of the container, and a structure supporting the container, the lid and the cooling means. In accordance with the invention, the container is mounted to the structure for movement relative to the structure and the lid to open the container and afford access to its interior or to close the container, and at least a majority of the external surface of the container is exposed to ambient air when the container is closed by the lid.

A method for operating PON (passive optical network) user terminal and a PON user terminal equipment, when there is only few data service request in the PON, the PON user terminal operates in power saving manner which maintains low speed connection, the method comprises: a judgment condition that the PON user terminal changes to power saving state is set; the PON user terminal determines whether its own state meet the judgment condition changing to power saving state, if so, it transmits a request to change to power saving state to the OLT (optical line terminal); after the PON user terminal receives the respond that the OLT has accepted the request, it controls parts of the modules therein to change to power saving state, and intermittently switch over between power saving state and normal state. The invention allows saving power under the condition that keeps the low speed service uninterrupted, in the meanwhile alleviates the pressure of ONU terminal thermal design.

A method to optimize the energy consumption of a station (STA)—as for example a laptop, palmtop or a mobile phone—in a network, preferably a WLAN according to the IEEE 802.11 standard where a station (STA) sending Power Save (PS) polls to an Access Point (AP) is characterized—regarding an efficient energy management of the station with a possibly low energy consumption—in that the Access Point (AP) confirms the receipt of a Power Save (PS) poll by sending an acknowledgement frame including information which indicates to the station (STA) whether a frame is stored for it at the Access Point (AP).