DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-10, as originally filed, are currently pending and have been considered below.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 1 recites the limitation, “the shade” in line 18 of the claim. This limitation appears to be missing a word and should recite, i.e., “the shade location.” Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding independent claim 1, the scope of the claims cannot be properly determined because they do not conform with current U.S. practice regarding the use of abbreviations or reference characters in claims. Independent claim 1, recites the abbreviation “DNI” in line 1 of the claim. When establishing abbreviations or reference characters in the claims the abbreviation should first be stated in full, followed by the abbreviation to be subsequently used, i.e. Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI).
Claim 1 recites the limitation "using a fitting model obtained" in line 23 of the claim. Claim 1 also recites the limitation “using a fitting model obtained” in line 26 of the claim. It is unclear if “a fitting model” in line 23 of the claim is the same or different “a fitting model” as in line 26 of the claim. If they are the same “fitting model,” line 26 should recite, i.e., “the fitting model.” If they are different, they should be distinguished from one another.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the shade’s current location” in line 27 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. This limitation could be reworded as, i.e., “predicting the DNI value of a current location of the shade’s location.”
Claim 2 recites the limitation "the three channels" in line 14 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Regarding claim 2, the phrase "meanwhile" and “but not limited to” renders the claim(s) indefinite because the claim(s) include(s) elements not actually disclosed (those encompassed by "not limited to"), thereby rendering the scope of the claim(s) unascertainable. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
Claim 2 recites the limitation "a cloud cluster" in line 23 of the claim. It is unclear if this the same “cloud cluster” as recited in claim 1, line 5 and claim 2, line 2 or if the limitation is referring to a different “cloud cluster.”
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the RGB color space" in lines 8-9 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the entire polynomial" in line 16 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the time" in line 25 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "focal length of the camera" in line 12 of the claim. It is unclear as to which camera the limitation is referring to, i.e., camera 1 or camera 2.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "focal length of the camera" in line 18 of the claim. It is unclear as to which camera the limitation is referring to, i.e., camera 1 or camera 2.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "the case" in lines 38-39 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 4 recites the limitations or parameters “Cx” and “Cy” with respect to the projected point formulas for camera 1 and camera 2, however, “Cx” and “Cy” are not defined in the parameter section of the claim and are therefore unclear.
Claim 5 recites the limitation "the location of the two all-sky imagers" in line 17 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 5 recites the limitation "the threshold" in line 19 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 5 recites the limitation "the coordinates" in line 20 of the claim. It is unclear as to which coordinates are being referred to in this limitation, i.e., the coordinates of camera 1 or camera 2 or different coordinates.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the solar angle" in line 4 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the true north" in line 5 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the ground" in line 6 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Additionally, this limitation recites, “the cloud on the ground.” The wording of this limitation is unclear as a cloud is usually not on the ground, the shade is on the ground.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the coordinates of the shade point on the ground" in line 12 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for “the coordinates” limitation in the claim.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the corresponding shade point" in line 15 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Regarding claim 9, the phrase "meanwhile" and “but not limited to” in line 5 of the claim, renders the claim(s) indefinite because the claim(s) include(s) elements not actually disclosed (those encompassed by "not limited to"), thereby rendering the scope of the claim(s) unascertainable. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
Claim 9 recites the limitation "the image data" in line 3 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 10 recites the limitation "a machine learning method" in line 2 of the claim. It is unclear if this is the same “machine learning method” as recited in at least line 20 of claim 1 or if this limitation is referring to a different “machine learning method.”
Claim 10 recites the limitation "the trained model" in line 4 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 6 and 8 are rejected for being dependent on a rejected base claim.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-10 would be allowable if the objections and 35 U.S.C. §112(b) rejections were overcome.
The closest prior art being Han et al., Chinese Patent Application Publication CN 114021442 A, discloses a Direct Normal Irradiance prediction method for a tower type photo-thermal power station. The method comprises five components including image formatting, image cutting, cloud cluster detection, training of a convolutional neural network to identify cloud cluster light transmittance and half-hour direct normal irradiance prediction. The change in direct normal irradiance can be predicted in advance and the impact on heat absorption caused by sudden rising of energy of a heliostat field due to sudden movement of a cloud layer is prevented.
Ding et al., Chinese Patent Application Publication No. CN 108121990 A, discloses a sun irradiance prediction method based on full-sky imaging. The method comprises determining a sun irradiance prediction value based on a cloud cluster track, determining a sun irradiance prediction value based on weather forecasting and a sun irradiance actual measured value to generate a final prediction of the sun irradiance.
Huang et al., Chinese Patent Application Publication No. CN 112085751 A, discloses a cloud layer height estimation method based on a cloud image shadow matching algorithm. The method comprises synchronously capturing a cloud image and a ground shadow image and preprocessing the acquired images. Then selecting a cloud cluster matching point and a shadow matching point through the cloud cluster shadow matching algorithm, calculating the cloud layer height according to the actual spatial relationship of the matching points. The actual spatial relationship between the ground shadow and the sky cloud layer can be accurately determined.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TRACY MANGIALASCHI whose telephone number is (571)270-5189. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9:30AM TO 6:00PM.
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/TRACY MANGIALASCHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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