Power management system

摘要

An apparatus is disclosed, which includes a system that includes loads, linear regulators, switches and a controller. The linear regulators supply power to the loads, and the controller is adapted to use the switches to selectively couple power sources to the linear regulators to regulate a collective power dissipation of linear regulators.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
a system comprising a plurality of loads, a plurality of linear regulators, a controller, an adjustable DC power source and a plurality of switches, wherein:
the adjustable DC power source is one of a plurality of DC power sources;the linear regulators receive a plurality of DC voltages, each DC voltage being provided by one of the DC power sources and the number of the DC power sources being less than the number of linear regulators;the linear regulators are adapted to supply power to the plurality of loads;the switches couple the DC voltages to the linear regulators according to one of a plurality of switch configurations; andthe controller is adapted to control both the DC output voltage provided by the adjustable DC power source and select the switch coupling configuration from the plurality of switch coupling configurations to regulate a collective power dissipation of the linear regulators.