Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

Intelligent air moving apparatus

Intelligent air moving apparatus description/claims

This application claims priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/943,679, filed Jun. 13, 2007, entitled “Intelligent High Performance Air Mover.”

Fans powered by electric motors are commonly used to cool computer servers and other electronic equipment within an electronics enclosure. Existing electronics enclosure cooling fans have limited intelligence and provide little or no communication to an infrastructure controller capable of monitoring the electronics systems the fans are designed to cool. Therefore, existing fans lack the ability to be optimized for thermal performance, noise, power consumption, reliability, maintenance and warranty costs, and other relevant parameters.

In typical computing systems, including computer servers, multiple fans are required to maintain sufficient airflow to cool the electronics equipment within the enclosure. Further, the multiple fans must be able to operate effectively and harmoniously in conjunction with each other. Therefore, limited intelligence fans require substantial amounts of computational overhead to ensure the fans are operating to provide adequate cooling, and to detect fan failures before the electronics equipment overheats.

The accompanying drawings illustrate embodiments of an intelligent air moving apparatus as described herein.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of a fan module interconnected to an infrastructure controller.

FIG. 2 shows an electronics enclosure having a plurality of fan modules mounted thereto for providing cooling.

There is shown in FIG. 1 an air moving apparatus 100 comprising a fan module 10 interconnected to an infrastructure controller 50. The infrastructure controller 50 is further interconnected to an electronics enclosure 60 to monitor various operational parameters including temperature of the electronics enclosure 60. The fan module 10 comprises a fan 12, a microcontroller 20, and an interface 40. The fan 12 has a motor 14 adapted to drive a fan blade 16 at a variable rotational speed, as commanded by the microcontroller 20, to accommodate the cooling needs of the electronics enclosure 60. The microcontroller 20 controls the speed of the motor 16 and includes a speed sensor 30 to sense the motor rotational speed and to provide a feedback signal of the actual motor speed. The microcontroller can additionally include other sensors, such as a voltage sensor 34, and a current sensor 36. In an embodiment, the microcontroller 20 receives instructions from the infrastructure controller 50 and sends fan status information to the infrastructure controller 50 via the interface 40.

The microcontroller 20 can be a microprocessor. Alternatively, the microcontroller functions can be performed by solid state components or other circuitry. An exemplary microcontroller is commonly known as a Programmable Interface Controller or Programmable Intelligent Computer (“PIC”), an inexpensive chip-based programmable microcontroller. The term “PIC” is used interchangeably with the term “microcontroller” in this application. The microcontroller 20 includes a memory 28 for storing data.

The microcontroller 20 includes features to allow the fan module 10 to assess its own status. The microcontroller 20 further is adapted to communicate information regarding operation of the fan module 10 to the infrastructure controller 50 to facilitate efficient and quiet cooling provided by the fan 12 to the electronics equipment 60. The microcontroller 20 can reduce power consumption and noise generation by the fan module 10, and can increase reliability of the fan 12, optimizing the fan 12 to operate at a level adequate to ensure adequate cooling of the electronics equipment 60 rather than having to operate at a margin of safety above such a level.

Precise Speed Control.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

• What Is a Patent?
• What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
• What Is a Copyright?
• Patent Laws