Patent ID: 11888383
Assignee: INFINEON TECHNOLOGIES AG
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A system comprising:
an energy harvesting circuit operative to collect ambient energy and use the collected ambient energy to charge a buffer capacitor;
a control circuit operative to, via cyclical ON/OFF control, alternatingly: i) connect an electric motor to the buffer capacitor for moving a latch of an electromechanical lock during a discharging phase, and ii) disconnect the electric motor from the buffer capacitor in a charging phase;
the alternate connecting and disconnecting of the electric motor occurring until a work output of the electric motor reaches a desired target level, or until an end of an nth discharging phase, n being a predetermined number;
wherein durations of the charging phase and the discharging phase are controlled such that a capacitor voltage of the buffer capacitor stays above a minimum supply voltage required to operate the electric motor to move the latch;
wherein the cyclical ON/OFF control includes implementation of multiple ON/OFF control cycles;
wherein the control circuit, for each respective ON/OFF control cycle of the multiple cyclical ON/OFF control cycles, is operative to: i) for an ON portion of the respective ON/OFF control cycle, activate switch circuitry to an ON-state to convey the capacitor voltage to the electric motor, and ii) for an OFF portion of the respective ON/OFF control cycle, deactivate the switch circuitry to an OFF-state to prevent conveyance of the capacitor voltage to the electric motor;
wherein the magnitude of the capacitor voltage stored in the capacitor is controlled to be greater than the minimum supply voltage during the ON portion of the respective ON/OFF control cycle; and
wherein the magnitude of the capacitor voltage stored in the capacitor is greater than the minimum supply voltage during the OFF portion of the respective ON/OFF control cycle.