Apple may have canned its Apple Car project, but the tech giant continues to be granted/file for patents related to automotive technology. The latest (number US 20240291394 A1) involves a vehicle heating system that could also charge your devices.
About the patent filing
The patent filing involves battery charging systems that can operate a charger as a heater to provide heat to regulate a temperature of a battery system or other systems. Examples could include vehicular batteries or grid storage batteries in cold climates. In such conditions, Apple says that operation may be improved by heating such systems (e.g., heating coolant associated with the batteries) to keep the battery and/or associated systems in a more optimal temperature range.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “Operating a battery charger having an AC side stacked half bridge configuration coupled to a primary winding of a transformer and a DC side stacked half bridge configuration coupled to a secondary winding of the transformer to provide heating can include either operating the AC side stacked half bridges to provide a current path through the primary winding that does not include an AC source or operating the DC side stacked half bridges to provide a current path through the secondary winding that does not include a battery.
“In the former case, operation can include operating the DC side stacked half bridges to alternate between switching states that selectively couple a battery to the secondary winding of the transformer. In the latter case, operation can include operating the AC side stacked half bridges to alternate between switching states that selectively couple the AC source to the primary winding.”
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