According to a speaker at a symposium on batteries, “Artificial intelligence domesticates the battery, which is a wild animal.” It is difficult to see changes in a battery as it is used; whether it is completely charged or empty, new or worn out and in need of replacement, it always appears the same. In contrast, an automobile tyre will deform when it is low on air and will signal its end of life when the treads are worn.
Three issues sum up a battery’s drawbacks: [1] the user is unsure of how much duration the pack has left; [2] the host is unsure of whether the battery can meet the power requirement; and [3] the charger needs to be customised for each battery size and chemistry. The “smart” battery promises to address some of these shortcomings, but the solutions are intricate.
Users of batteries typically think of a battery pack as an energy storage system that dispenses liquid fuel like a fuel tank. A battery can be viewed as such for simplicity’s sake, but quantifying the energy stored in an electrochemical device is far more difficult.
As the printed circuit board that controls the performance of the lithium battery is present, lithium is regarded as a smart battery. How ever a standard sealed lead acid battery does not have any board control to optimize its performance.
What is smart battery?
Any battery with a built-in battery management system is considered smart. It is frequently utilised in smart gadgets, including as computers and portable electronics. A smart battery contains an electronic circuit within and sensors that can monitor characteristics like the user’s health as well as voltage and current levels and relay those readings to the device.
Smart batteries have the ability to recognise their own state-of-charge and state-of-health parameters, which the device can access via specialised data connections. A smart battery, in contrast to a non-smart battery, can communicate all pertinent information to the device and user, enabling appropriate informed decisions to be made. A non-smart battery, on the other hand, has no way of informing the device or user about its state, which can result in unpredictable operation. For instance, the battery can alert the user when it needs to be charged or when it is nearing its end of life or is damaged in any manner so that a replacement can be purchased. It can also alert the user when it needs to be replaced. By doing this, a great deal of the unpredictability brought on by older devices—which can malfunction at vital moments—can be avoided.
Smart Battery Specification
In order to improve the product’s performance, safety, and efficiency, the battery, smart charger, and host device all communicate with one another. For instance, the smart battery needs to be charged just when necessary rather than being installed on the host system for constant and consistent energy use. Smart batteries constantly monitor their capacity when charging, discharging, or storing. In order to detect changes in battery temperature, charge rate, discharge rate, etc., the battery gauge makes use of specific factors. Smart batteries typically have self-balancing and adaptable characteristics. The performance of the battery will be harmed by full charge storage. To protect the battery, the smart battery can drain to the storage voltage as needed and activate the smart storage function as necessary.
With the introduction of smart batteries, users, equipment, and the battery may all communicate with one another. Manufacturers and regulatory organisations differ in how “smart” a battery may be. The most fundamental smart battery might only include a chip that instructs the battery charger to use the proper charge algorithm. But, the Smart Battery System (SBS) Forum would not consider it to be a smart battery due to its demand of cutting-edge indications, which are essential for medical, military, and computer equipment where there can be no room for error.
System intelligence must be contained inside the battery pack due to safety being one of the primary concerns. The chip that controls the battery charge is implemented by the SBS battery, and it interacts with it in a closed loop. The chemical battery sends analogue signals to the charger that instruct it to stop charging when the battery is full. Added is temperature sensing. Many smart battery manufacturers today provide a fuel gauge technology known as System Management Bus (SMBus), which integrates integrated circuit (IC) chip technologies in single-wire or two-wire systems.
Dallas Semiconductor Inc. unveiled 1-Wire, a measuring system that uses a single wire for low-speed communication. Data and a clock are combined and sent over the same line. At the receiving end, the Manchester code, also known as the phase code, divides the data. The battery code and data, such as its voltage, current, temperature, and SoC details, are stored and tracked by 1-Wire. On the majority of batteries, a separate temperature-sensing wire is run for security purposes. The system includes a charger and its own protocol. In the Benchmarq single-wire system, a state of health (SoH) assessment necessitates “marrying” the host device to its allotted battery.
1-Wire is appealing for cost-constrained energy storage systems such barcode scanner batteries, two-way radio batteries, and military batteries because of its low hardware cost.
Smart Battery System
Any battery present in a conventional portable device arrangement is merely a “dumb” chemical power cell. The readings “taken” by the host device serve as the sole basis for battery metering, capacity estimation, and other power usage decisions. These readings are usually based on the amount of voltage travelling from the battery through the host device or, (less precisely), on readings taken by a Coulomb Counter in the host. They are primarily dependent on guesswork.
But, with a smart power management system, the battery is able to precisely “inform” the host how much power it still has and how it wants to be charged
For maximum product safety, effectiveness, and performance, the battery, smart charger, and host device all communicate with one another. Smart batteries, for instance, don’t put a continual, steady “draw” on the host system; instead, they just request charge when they need it. Smart batteries thus have a more effective charging process. By advising its host device when to shut down based on its own evaluation of its remaining capacity, smart batteries can also maximise the “runtime per discharge” cycle. This approach outperforms “dumb” devices that employ a set voltage cut-off by a wide margin.
As a result, host portable systems that employ smart battery technology can give consumers precise, useful runtime information. In devices with mission-critical functions, when a power loss is not an option, this is unquestionably of utmost importance.
Post time: Mar-08-2023