Smart batteries for automotive applications

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Catherino, Henry A.^{a; *} | Batson, David C.^b

Affiliations: [a] AMSTA-TR-E/PWR 267, US Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, MI 48397-5000, USA. Tel.: +1 810 574 5831; E-mail: [email protected] | [b] 200 Reservoir Street, PowerSmart, Inc., Needham, MA 02494, USA. Tel.: +1 781 453 8840; E-mail: [email protected]

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author.

Abstract: The US Army has been pursuing the development of a Smart Battery development as part of its on-going efforts for reducing operation and maintenance costs of the Army's ground vehicles. As a consequence of this effort, it became evident that the smart battery has a much broader significance well beyond that of an operations and maintenance cost reduction exercise. In effect, the traditional concept of a battery as a simple energy storage unit yielded to that of a critical component in a power management subsystem. A smart battery is a standard battery having an embedded microcontroller that monitors key sensor inputs, processes and stores the derived information and reports the results on a shared data bus. In that arrangement, the smart battery serves the function of a status-reporting load-leveling component of the over-all subsystem. As such, the smart battery becomes an essential contributor to a digital nervous system in vehicle systems. The smart battery is creating a new way of defining what a battery is. It is evident that the use of smart batteries has a direct bearing on vehicle readiness and enables system-wide planning, organization and control of the power and energy resources.

DOI: 10.3233/ICA-2002-9208

Journal: Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 185-193, 2002