Compensation for internal power dissipation in ambient room temperature estimation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11726507-B2
Application number	US-202017006777-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 28, 2020
Priority date	Aug 28, 2020
Publication date	Aug 15, 2023
Grant date	Aug 15, 2023

Abstract

A smart-home device may include a temperature sensor, energy-consuming subsystems, and processors programmed to receive a temperature measurement from the temperature sensor for an ambient environment surrounding the temperature sensor; receive inputs from the energy-consuming subsystems that indicate power-consuming activities of the energy-consuming subsystems; providing the inputs from the energy-consuming subsystems to a model that is trained to calculate an effect of the power-consuming activity of the energy-consuming subsystems on the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor; and calculating an estimate of the temperature of the ambient environment by compensating the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor with using the effect of the power-consuming activity of the energy-consuming subsystems.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A smart-home device comprising:
a temperature sensor;
one or more energy-consuming subsystems;
one or more processors programmed to perform operations comprising:
receiving a temperature measurement from the temperature sensor for an ambient environment surrounding the temperature sensor;
receiving one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems representative of a measured amount of electrical power being consumed by the one or more energy-consuming subsystems, wherein the one or more inputs comprises a measurement of an output of a voltage regulator representing an internal main power rail of the smart-home device, and the measurement is indicative of an overall power sourced from a power supply of the smart-home device and consumed by the smart-home device as a whole;
providing the one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems to a model that is trained to calculate an effect of power-consuming activity of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems on the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor, wherein the model comprises a thermal model of the smart-home device that models how heat from the one or more energy consuming subsystems affects the smart-home device; and
calculating an estimate of the temperature of the ambient environment by compensating the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor using the effect of the power-consuming activity of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems.

2. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the smart-home device does not include additional temperature sensors in addition to the temperature sensor.

3. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the model is executed by the smart-home device.

4. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the model is executed by a server that is in communication with the smart-home device.

5. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the smart-home device comprises a thermostat.

6. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the smart-home device comprises a digital home assistant.

7. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the thermal model comprises thermal masses and thermal resistances between thermal volumes inside the smart-home device.

8. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the measured amount of electrical power being consumed by the one or more energy-consuming subsystems comprises an average current measurement from the main power rail.

9. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the measured amount of electrical power being consumed by the one or more energy-consuming subsystems comprises devices represents an amount of energy converted to heat by the one or more energy-consuming subsystems, which heat affects the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor.

10. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more energy-consuming subsystems comprises a solid-state switching circuit that switches a power supply from an external environmental system.

11. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems comprises a record of commands sent from the processor to the at least one of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems indicating when the at least one of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems was operating.

12. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems comprises records from a performance monitor that is integrated with at least one of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems.

13. The smart-home device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems comprises a current measurement from an internal telemetry system of at least one of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems.

14. A method of estimating ambient temperatures to compensate for internal heating, the method comprising:
receiving a temperature measurement from a temperature sensor for an ambient environment surrounding the temperature sensor;
receiving one or more inputs from one or more energy-consuming subsystems representative of a measured amount of electrical power being consumed by the one or more energy-consuming subsystems, wherein the one or more inputs comprises a measurement of an output of a voltage regulator representing an internal main power rail of a smart-home device, and the measurement is indicative of an overall power sourced from a power supply of the smart-home device and consumed by the smart-home device as a whole;
providing the one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems to a model that is trained to calculate an effect of power-consuming activity of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems on the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor, wherein the model comprises a thermal model of the smart-home device that models how heat from the one or more energy consuming subsystems affects the smart-home device; and
calculating an estimate of the temperature of the ambient environment by compensating the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor using the effect of the power-consuming activity of the one or more energy-consuming subsystems.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the model comprises an estimator that receives the one or more inputs from the one or more energy-consuming subsystems and the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor and provides the estimate of the temperature of the ambient environment.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising generating the estimator by training the thermal model of a smart-home device that houses the temperature sensor.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising generating the estimator by augmenting the thermal model with an integrator that acts as an ambient temperature input for the thermal model.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein the temperature sensor and the one or more energy-consuming subsystems are part of a smart-home device.

19. The method of claim 14 , wherein the main power rail monitor comprises an integrator that counts a number of integration cycles performed during a time interval.

20. The method of claim 14 , wherein the model is executed by a cloud-based server system.

Assignees

• Google Llc

Inventors

• Warren Daniel Adam
• Mitchell Michael
• Van Der Linden Gwendolyn
• Rylander Ford
• Silverstein Brian
• Raghupathy Arun

Classifications

• G05D23/32 Primary

  with provision for adjustment of the effect of the auxiliary heating device, e.g. a function of time · CPC title

• G01K1/20 Primary

  Compensating for effects of temperature changes other than those to be measured, e.g. changes in ambient temperature · CPC title

• G05D23/1917

  using digital means · CPC title