Smart Battery Solution by Entrada

A smart battery is any battery that contains its own battery management system. It is often used in smart devices including laptops and mobile devices. This  battery has an internal electronic circuit and sensors that can detect voltage and current levels as well as other parameters such as state of health and then communicate them to the device and, as an extension, to the user.

Internally, a smart battery can measure voltage and current, and deduce charge level and SoH (State of Health) parameters, indicating the state of the cells. Externally, a battery can communicate with a battery charger and a “smart energy user” via the bus interface. This can demand that the charging stop, request charging, or demand that the smart energy user stop using power from this battery

Thermal Management

Battery thermal management systems can be either passive or active, and the cooling medium can either be air, liquid, or some form of phase change. Air cooling is advantageous in its simplicity. Such systems can be passive, relying only on the convection of the surrounding air, or active, utilizing fans for airflow.

Liquid cooling has a higher natural cooling potential than air cooling as liquid coolants tend to have higher thermal conductivity than air. The batteries can either be directly submerged in the coolant or coolant can flow through the BMS without directly contacting the battery. Indirect cooling has the potential to create large thermal gradients across the BMS due to the increased length of the cooling channels. This can be reduced by pumping the coolant faster through the system, creating a trade off between pumping speed and thermal consistency

Batteries are classified into primary and secondary forms:

• Primary batteries are designed to be used until exhausted of energy then discarded. Their chemical reactions are generally not reversible, so they cannot be recharged. When the supply of reactants in the battery is exhausted, the battery stops producing current and is useless.
• Secondary batteries can be recharged; that is, they can have their chemical reactions reversed by applying electric current to the cell. This regenerates the original chemical reactants, so they can be used, recharged, and used again multiple times.