Wind-powered computing buoy

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11685478-B2
Application number	US-202217854805-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 30, 2022
Priority date	Jan 27, 2018
Publication date	Jun 27, 2023
Grant date	Jun 27, 2023

Abstract

Disclosed is a novel type of computing apparatus which is integrated within a buoy that obtains the energy required to power its computing operations from waves that travel across the surface of the body of water on which the buoy floats. Additionally, these self-powered computing buoys utilize their close proximity to a body of water in order to significantly lower the cost and complexity of cooling their computing circuits. Computing tasks of an arbitrary nature are supported, as is the incorporation and/or utilization of computing circuits specialized for the execution of specific types of computing tasks. And, each buoy's receipt of a computational task, and its return of a computational result, may be accomplished through the transmission of data across satellite links, fiber optic cables, LAN cables, radio, modulated light, microwaves, and/or any other channel, link, connection, and/or network.

First claim

We claim:

1. A buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus, comprising: a buoyant member;
a wind-to-electrical-energy converter mounted on the buoyant member;
a plurality of integrated circuits, said plurality of integrated circuits energized by the wind-to-electrical-energy converter and configured to perform cryptocurrency mining.

2. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a data communication system mounted on the buoyant member for communicating computational task specifications to the plurality of integrated circuits.

3. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the data communication system includes an antenna.

4. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of integrated circuits is disposed below a mean waterline of the buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus.

5. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 4 , further comprising a submerged heat exchanger adapted to communicate heat from the plurality of integrated circuits to a body of water.

6. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of integrated circuits is configured to calculate cryptocurrency ledgers and identify suitable nonce values for said cryptocurrency ledgers.

7. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the buoyant member is a spar buoy and the wind-to-electrical-energy converter includes a wind turbine and an electrical generator.

8. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an activation system, wherein application-specific integrated circuits are turned on by the activation system in response to an increase in electrical power from the wind-to-electrical-energy converter.

9. The buoyant proof-of-work computation apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a compartment mounted on the buoyant member and housing an immersion liquid having a boiling point lower than that of water, wherein the plurality of integrated circuits warms the immersion liquid to dissipate heat.

Assignees

• Lone Gull Holdings Ltd

Inventors

• Moffat Brian Lee
• Sheldon-Coulson Garth Alexander

Classifications

• B63H21/17

  by electric motor · CPC title

• B63H13/00

  Marine propulsion by wind motors driving water-engaging propulsive elements · CPC title

• B63B35/44 Primary

  Floating buildings, stores, drilling platforms, or workshops, e.g. carrying water-oil separating devices {(construction methods for floating offshore platforms B63B75/00)} · CPC title

• B63B2022/006

  specially adapted for measuring or watch purposes · CPC title

• H04L9/0643

  Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC · CPC title