Patent Application
20240398007
Personal vaporizers provide an alternative to smoking techniques which involve combustion of organic matter and inhalation of the vapor. Instead vaporizers atomize a substance (e.g., a nicotine substance or cannabis substance) using a heating element to simulate the combustion found in traditional cigarettes. Personal vaporizers often use removable/replaceable cartridges containing a substance for atomization. Different substances may require different heating profiles for improved vaporization.
The present disclosure involves systems, methods, and an apparatus for identifying a cartridge of a personal vaporizer. The cartridge includes a reservoir configured to contain a fluid to be vaporized, a set of contracts configured to receive power from a power supply and deliver the power to the heating element, a wick configured to deliver the fluid to the heating element, and a near field communication (NFC) tag. The NFC tag includes an antenna and a circuit that stores a uniform resource locator (URL) and a unique identification (ID) associated with the cartridge. The NFC tag is configured to transmit the URL and ID in response to an interrogation from an NFC reader.
Implementations can optionally include one or more of the following features.
In some instances, the circuit stores at least one parameter associated with the fluid.
In some instances, the circuit stores a setting associated with the heating element and the fluid to be vaporized.
In some instances, the setting is a power level and duration setting associated with the power to the heating element.
In some instances, the cartridge includes a puff sensor configured to detect when airflow passes through the cartridge and send a puff signal.
Implementations of the present disclosure further describe a power supply for a personal vaporizer. The power supply includes a battery, a NFC reader configured to interrogate an NFC tag and extract a URL and unique ID from the NFC tag, and a controller. The controller is configured to receive the URL and the ID from the NFC reader, determine a power setting based on the URL and the ID, and deliver electrical power from the battery to a set of contacts according to the determined power setting. The set of contacts is associated with a heating element of a cartridge for the personal vaporizer.
In some instances, the power setting is determined based on the URL and the ID by accessing a database storing the ID and retrieving the power setting based on the ID.
In some instances, the NFC reader interrogates the NFC tag in response to the cartridge for the personal vaporizer being connected to the contacts.
The details of these and other aspects and embodiments of the present disclosure are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.
This disclosure describes a communication system between a cartridge portion and a power supply portion for a personal vaporizer such as an electronic cigarette, a vape pen, vape kits, e-cig, or e-hookah, electronic nicotine delivery system. In some personal vaporizer implementations, a power supply portion operates a disposable cartridge portion. The cartridge includes a reservoir containing the substance to be vaporized, and a heating element. However, different substances may require different operational parameters. This disclosure describes a system and techniques for enabling the power supply portion to automatically adjust its operation to many different cartridges.
Cartridges can have many different variables. For example, a cartridge can have a higher resistance heating element, contain more substance/fluid to be vaporized, or contain different fluids of varying viscosity. In order to enable good performance on a wide variety of cartridges, the power supply portion of the personal vaporizer must be able to detect what cartridge is being used, and adapt its output parameters accordingly. One solution is to use near field communications (NFC) to enable automatic data exchange between the cartridge and the power supply, without requiring a direct (e.g., mechanical) connection.
The use of NFC between the cartridge and the power supply has several advantages. It enables communication regardless of the particular orientation, size, shape, or relative position between the cartridge and power supply. Therefore a broad range of form factors and connection configurations are supported. Additionally, secure or encrypted information can be stored on the cartridge, which can be used to ensure that only certified or select cartridges are used with a particular power supply, enhancing manufacturer control.
Turning to the illustrated example implementation,
Cartridge 12 includes a reservoir 30 and an atomization chamber 32. The atomization chamber 32 receives a primary substance in liquid form from the reservoir 30 via the wick 34. The wick 34 can be a fibrous bundle that draws liquid via capillary action from the reservoir 30. The wick 34 extends from the primary reservoir into the atomization chamber 32. It can be formed of a suitable heat-resistant wicking material, such as aramid, fluorocarbon, sulfide, melamine, polyimide, carbon, glass fibers, or any combination thereof. The heating element 36 can be a resistive coil that generates heat when electrical current passes through it. The heating element 36 can be supplied with electrical power from the power supply portion 10 of the personal vaporizer. The heating element 36 is located proximal to the wick 34 (in the example illustrated in
Chimney 38 provides a flow path from the air inlet vent 16, through the atomization chamber 32, and out the aerosol outlet 40 in the mouthpiece 4 portion of the cartridge 12. Mechanical coupler 14, illustrated as a threaded device, can include one or more electrical contacts 42A, which are configured to mate with corresponding contacts 42B on the power supply 10. These contacts 42A can provide an electrical flow path from the battery 48, via the controller 52, through the heating element 36. In some implementations, contacts 42A are a simple two pin system, with a positive and a common connection. In some implementations, contacts 42A are more complex, and can include, for example, serial connections, dedicated transmit/receive connections, or other configurations. Cartridge 12 can include one or more puff sensors 35 which can be, for example, a microphone, or pressure sensor, that transmits a “puff” signal to the controller to enable the power supply 10 to activate the heating element 36 when a user induces airflow through the cartridge 12. In some implementations, sensor data is transmitted from the cartridge 12 to the power supply 10 wirelessly, e.g., using Bluetooth Low Energy, or ZigBee. In some implementations, sensor data (e.g. temperature data, puff data, or other information) is transmitted via contacts 42A and 42B.
Each cartridge 12 can include an NFC tag 44 that includes an antenna, and a circuit (e.g., an integrated circuit) that is configured to transmit NFC signals. The NFC tag 44 can be, for example, an NXP NTAG 5 or similar device. In some implementations, the NFC tag 44 is a sticker, or a small adhesive strip with the antenna embedded into it. When interrogated by an NFC reader, the NFC tag 44 transmits information via a 13.56 Mhz radio signal using a protocol such as ISO/IEC 21481 (NFCIP-2). The NFC tag 44 can be preprogrammed (e.g., at the time of manufacture) to transmit a URL and a unique cartridge ID, which specifies the cartridge contents (e.g., cannabis oil, a THC suspension, tobacco, opium, amphetamines, or other recreational or medicinal substances). NFC tag 44 can transmit additional information such as content amount, or desired heating setting, expiration date, or other information. In some implementations, the NFC tag 44 is an active tag, that is, it includes a separate power supply and actively transmits signals using the power supply. In some implementations, NFC tag 44 is a passive device, and is powered by the incoming interrogation signal.
Power supply 10 includes a mechanical coupler 15, and complementary contacts 42B which can receive mechanical coupler 14 and contacts 42A, completing an electrical connection and enabling power transfer and communication between power supply 10 and cartridge 12. A battery 48 supplies electrical power to power supply 10, and can be rechargeable (e.g., via interface/charging port 54).
A memory 50 can store instructions for controller 52, and can be for example, a flash memory, or EEPROM, or other memory type. Memory 50 can represent a single memory or multiple memories. The memory 50 can include any memory or database module and can take the form of volatile or non-volatile memory including, without limitation, magnetic media, optical media, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), removable media, or any other suitable component. In general, memory 50 stores operating instructions for controller 52, and can include a database of cartridge types and settings. For example, memory 50 can store a database of operation settings, including heat intensity, duration, and frequency associated with a number of different cartridges. In some implementations, the controller 52 can periodically update this database by communicating with an external system via interface 54. Interface 54 can be a serial interface such as a universal serial bus (USB) type C, or other connection. In some implementations, interface 54 serves a dual purpose of providing external communications to power supply 10, as well as electrical power for recharging battery 48.
Controller 52 generally controls power supplied to the contacts 42B and thus to heating element 36. In some implementations, controller 52 receives additional sensor inputs. For example, controller 52 can receive a signal corresponding to whether a cartridge is installed on power supply 10, and if not, prevent power from being sent to contacts 52B. In another example, controller 52 receives a “puff” signal from one or more sensors in cartridge 12 and uses the puff signal in addition to the cartridge type in order to determine how much power to supply to contacts 42B. Additionally, controller 52 can activate or deactivate NFC reader 46.
NFC reader 46 can include an NFC antenna, and can periodically scan for, or interrogate NFC tags (e.g. NFC tag 44) and receive return communications from successfully interrogated tags. NFC reader 46 can be, for example, an NXP PN7160, NXP PN532 with a Nordic nRF52 chip or other similar device. In general, NFC reader 46 includes the necessary interface, power management, memory, and processing required to interrogate an NFC tag and retrieve the data on that tag. In some implementations, the NFC reader 46 performs an interrogation scan periodically (e.g., every 1 s, 10 s, 5 m etc.). In some implementations, the NFC reader 46 is only activated when a new cartridge 12 is connected, or needs to be scanned. For example, after a predetermined number of puffs on a given cartridge, the power supply 10 can identify that a new cartridge will be required soon and begin scanning. In some implementations, the NFC reader 46 is motion activated, or performs an interrogation scan every time the connection between contacts 42B and 42A is broken and re-made. In some implementations, the NFC reader 46 is manually triggered. For example, a user can press a button on the power supply portion 10 to initiate an interrogation scan.
The NFC reader 46 retrieves the URL and ID from the NFC tag 44, and then compares that to memory 50 in order to determine appropriate settings for the currently connected cartridge 12. In some implementations, the URL and ID can be passed directly from the power supply 10 to an external system, which can return parameters to be stored in memory 50 and used with the associated cartridge. In some implementations, the NFC tag 44 stores the parameters directly and communications with an external system are not necessary. Appropriate settings for the currently connected cartridge 12 can include, but are not limited to, enabling or disabling of certain on-board sensors (e.g., temperature sensors, puff sensors, etc.), enabling or disabling certain heating elements, security features (e.g., fingerprint reader, NFC lock system, etc.), or sensor settings such as “puff” sensitivity, “puff” limit.
Although this disclosure has been described in terms of certain embodiments and generally associated methods, alterations and permutations of these embodiments and methods will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the above description of example embodiments does not define or constrain this disclosure. Other changes, substitutions, and alterations are also possible without departing from the spirit and scope of this disclosure.
