Battery monitoring circuit for operating with high battery discharge rates
First Claim
1. A battery monitoring circuit for operating with high battery discharge rates, comprising:
- a voltage monitor for monitoring the voltage of the battery and providing a monitored voltage output;
a discharge rate sensor for monitoring the rate at which charge is removed from the battery as a rate of discharge;
a processor for processing the monitored voltage output from said voltage monitor to determine select operating parameters of the battery for use in monitoring the operation of the battery, said processor operating, in a normal operating mode, to determine said select operating parameters and, in an inhibit mode, to prevent said operating parameters from being determined by said processor, andan inhibit circuit for controlling said processor to operate in the inhibit mode when said rate of discharge is above a predetermined discharge rate, said inhibit circuit returning said processor to the normal operating mode when said rate of discharge falls below said predetermined discharge rate.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A battery detect circuit (32) is connected to the battery with the current input to the battery and extracted from the battery measured with a sense resistor (50) and then converted to charge and discharge pulses with a V/F converter (52). A microcontroller (64) is operable to increment a Nominal Available Charge (NAC) register (180) during a charge operation, and to increment a Discharge Count Register (DCR) (184) during a discharge operation. The NAC register (180) indicates the available charge, which value is output to a display (34). The maximum value to which the NAC value can rise is limited by a value stored in the last measured discharge register (182). This value represents the value stored in the DCR (184) whenever the battery is discharged from an apparent full state to a fully discharged state. This results in a qualified transfer to the LMD register (182) such that no knowledge of the actual battery charge is necessary. The microcontroller (64) is operable to determine the rate of discharge corresponding to the voltage across the sense resistor (50). When the rate of discharge exceeds a predetermined discharge rate, the operation of the microcontroller (64) is partially inhibited. When the rate of discharge falls below the predetermined discharge rate, the microcontroller (64) is again allowed to operate in a normal operating mode. A resistor (61) is switched across the battery (10) by a transistor (59) for a short duration of time after the discharge rate had fallen below the discharge rate threshold voltage.
99 Citations
12 Claims
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1. A battery monitoring circuit for operating with high battery discharge rates, comprising:
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a voltage monitor for monitoring the voltage of the battery and providing a monitored voltage output; a discharge rate sensor for monitoring the rate at which charge is removed from the battery as a rate of discharge; a processor for processing the monitored voltage output from said voltage monitor to determine select operating parameters of the battery for use in monitoring the operation of the battery, said processor operating, in a normal operating mode, to determine said select operating parameters and, in an inhibit mode, to prevent said operating parameters from being determined by said processor, and an inhibit circuit for controlling said processor to operate in the inhibit mode when said rate of discharge is above a predetermined discharge rate, said inhibit circuit returning said processor to the normal operating mode when said rate of discharge falls below said predetermined discharge rate. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method for monitoring the operating parameters of a battery that operates with high discharge rates, comprising the steps of:
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monitoring the voltage across the battery to provide a monitored output voltage; monitoring the amount of charge removed from the battery as a function of time and determining the discharge rate of the battery; providing a processor operable in a normal operating mode and an inhibit mode; processing the monitored voltage with the processor to determine select ones of the operating parameters of the battery utilized to monitor the operation of the battery, the step of processing operating the processor in either the inhibit mode to inhibit determining the select ones of the operating parameters of the battery or in the normal operating mode to determine the select ones of the operation parameters of the battery; detecting in a first detecting step when the discharge rate of the battery exceeds a predetermined discharge rate threshold; controlling the step of processing to operate the processor in the inhibit mode when the first step of detecting has detected a discharge rate in excess of the predetermined discharge rate threshold; detecting in a second detecting step when the discharge rate falls from a point above the predetermined discharge rate threshold to a point below the predetermined discharge rate threshold; and controlling the step of processing to operate the processor in the normal operating mode when the second detecting step has detected the discharge rate falling from a point above the predetermined discharge rate threshold to a point below the predetermined discharge rate threshold. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification