Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to wireless charging, and, more particularly, to wireless charging of vehicles.

Apple notes in their filing that a battery in an electric vehicle can be charged by plugging a charging cable into a charging port of the vehicle. It would be less cumbersome to be able to transfer power wirelessly from a charging pad located on the ground and a corresponding wireless power receiver mounted to the underside of a vehicle.

While avoiding the need to use charging cables, wireless charging approaches may face challenges in transferring power efficiently. If care is not taken, the wireless power receiver in a vehicle will be misaligned with the charging pad and efficiency will suffer.

Apple's solution and invention covers a system such as a vehicle may have control circuitry that controls a steering and propulsion system. The control circuitry may use the steering and propulsion system to park the vehicle in a parking space. Wireless power may be transferred from a wireless power transmitter in the parking space to a wireless power receiver coupled to a vehicle body in the vehicle.

The control circuitry may use sensors to make sensor measurements during parking events. The control circuitry may also gather information on wireless power transfer efficiency. Historical vehicle-to-wireless-power-transmitter alignment information may be updated based on the sensor measurements and corresponding wireless power transfer efficiency measurements. During subsequent parking events, the historical vehicle-to-wireless-power-transmitter alignment information may be used to park the vehicle in a location with maximum wireless power transfer efficiency. If desired, the position at which a vehicle is parked within a parking space may be intentionally varied over a series of parking events to gather additional alignment information.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is a schematic diagram of an illustrative system; FIG. 9 is a diagram showing how a vehicle may be parked within a parking space so that a wireless power receiver on the vehicle may be aligned with a wireless power transmitter in the parking space.

Apple's patent application 20190210480 that was published today by the U.S. Patent Office was filed back in March. References point to work on this project going back to 2016. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.