Appeal No. 2006-2920 Page 7
Application No. 10/813,501
negative voltage drop. With respect to the operation of the inductive load
driving apparatus disclosed by Asada, we note that switching transistor 9 is
turned ON when battery 2 has a low voltage and needs charging, as
detected by comparator 53 that provides an output generation control signal
Vc that indicates a low-battery condition by going HIGH [Asada, col. 4, lines
21-25]. We note that when transistor 9 is ON, field coil 32 is energized by
the DC battery voltage to generate an electromagnetic field that induces a
current flow in rotating three-phase armature winding 30 that charges the
automobile battery after rectification by three-phase-full-wave rectifier 31
[id., see also col. 2, lines 56-60]. We note that when the battery is fully
charged, generation control signal Vc goes LOW, turning OFF transistor 9
(which turns off the DC current applied to field coil 32), disabling the
alternator charging voltage output [col. 4, lines 11-25]. We note that after a
short delay, switching transistor 10 is turned ON to shunt the backflow
current from field coil 32 to ground [col. 8, lines 4-18]. We note that when
field coil 32 is turned OFF (i.e., not supplied with power through transistor
9), the battery charge cycle will not resume again until a low-battery
condition is again detected by comparator 53, as indicated by generation
control signal Vc again going HIGH [col. 3, lines 29-33]. We further note
that Asada discloses if field coil voltage Vx is higher than ground level, the
second driving circuit 7 turns off the low-side switching element 10 (i.e.,
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