Patent ID: 7994657

Claim:
An apparatus for supplying energy to a load, comprising: an energy recharge unit; an energy storage unit; an energy converter connected to said energy recharge unit, said energy converter being capable of transferring energy at a power level from said energy recharge unit to an output node at a predetermined voltage, said power level being determined by a power transfer controller; and a bi-directional energy converter connected to said energy storage unit and to said output node; a sensorless current mode (SCM) controller connected to the energy storage unit to receive an output of the energy storage, to the output node to receive an output of the bi-directional energy converter, and to the bi-directional energy converter, the SCM controller being configured to control the operation of the bi-directional energy converter, based on the output of the energy storage and the output of the bi-directional energy converter, to maintain the voltage of the output node at the predetermined voltage by: (i) converting energy of varying voltages from said energy storage unit to energy of varying current levels at the predetermined voltage to supplement said transferred energy with energy from said energy storage unit, (ii) converting said transferred energy to provide charging energy to said energy storage unit when said transferred energy exceeds a demand level of said load, and (iii) deactivating the bi-directional energy converter in response to the transferred energy falling below the demand level of said load and a charge level of the energy storage unit falling below a predetermined lower charge threshold.