Battery Management

Battery Management Systems are the brains behind battery packs. They manage the output, charging and discharging and provide notifications on the status of the battery pack. They also provide critical safeguards to protect the batteries from damage. To ensure that the batteries are charged correctly and their life and use is optimised, battery management or fuel gauge systems have grown in parallel.

A battery-management system (BMS) typically consists of several functional blocks, including cut-off field-effect transmitters (FETs), fuel-gauge monitor, cell-voltage monitor, cell-voltage balance, real-time clock, temperature monitors, and a state machine.

Battery management systems vary in the functionality they provide and accordingly in their flexibility. Some of the battery management functionality is Monitoring, Computation, Environment management and Communication.

By knowing the level of charge in the battery, it is possible to detect the length of time that the equipment can operate before it is re-charged. By using various algorithms the battery management system is able to determine figures including the Sate of Charge or Depth of Discharge as well as the State of Health of the battery. The state of health of a battery is important because as a rechargeable battery or cell is used, its capacity reduces, and this needs to be computed by the battery management system to enable it to know the full charge level and capacity.