A User Programmable Battery Charging System

Rechargeable batteries are found in almost every battery powered application. Be it portable, stationary or motive applications, these batteries go hand in hand with battery charging systems. With energy harvesting being targeted in this day and age, high energy density and longer lasting batteries with efficient charging systems are being developed by companies and original equipment manufacturers. Whatever the application may be, rechargeable batteries, which deliver power to a load or system, have to be replenished or recharged once their energy is depleted. Battery charging systems must perform this replenishment by using very fast and efficient methods to extend battery life and to increase periods between charges. In this regard, they have to be versatile, efficient and user programmable to increase their applications in numerous battery powered systems. This is to reduce the cost of using different battery chargers for different types of battery powered applications and also to provide the convenience of rare battery replacement and extend the periods between charges. This thesis proposes a user programmable charging system that can charge a Lithium ion battery from three different input sources, i.e. a wall outlet, a universal serial bus (USB) and an energy harvesting system. The proposed charging system consists of three main building blocks, i.e. a pulse charger, a step down DC to DC converter and a switching network system, to extend the number of applications it can be used for. The switching network system is to allow charging of a battery via an energy harvesting system, while the step down converter is used to provide an initial supply voltage to kick start the energy harvesting system. The pulse charger enables the battery to be charged from a wall outlet or a USB network. It can also be reconfigured to charge a Nickel Metal Hydride battery. The final design is implemented on an IBM 0.18µm process. Experimental results verify the concept of the proposed charging system. The pulse charger is able to be reconfigured as a trickle charger and a constant current charger to charge a Li-ion battery and a Nickel Metal Hydride battery, respectively. The step down converter has a maximum efficiency of 90% at an input voltage of 3V and the charging of the battery via an energy harvesting system is also verified

Improved Performance of Li-ion Polymer Batteries Through Improved Pulse Charging Algorithm

Pulse charging of lithium-ion polymer batteries (LiPo), when properly implemented, offers increased battery charge and energy efficiencies and improved safety for electronic device consumers. Investigations of the combined impact of pulse charge duty cycle and frequency of the pulse charge current on the performance of lithium-ion polymer (LiPo) batteries used the Taguchi orthogonal arrays (OA) to identify optimal and robust pulse charging parameters that maximize battery charge and energy efficiencies while decreasing charge time. These were confirmed by direct comparison with the commonly applied benchmark constant current-constant voltage (CC–CV) charging method. The operation of a pulse charger using identified optimal parameters resulted in charge time reduction by 49% and increased charge and energy efficiencies of 2% and 12% respectively. Furthermore, when pulse charge current factors, such as frequency and duty cycle were considered, it was found that the duty cycle of the pulse charge current had the most impact on the cycle life of the LiPo battery and that the cycle life could be increased by as much as 100 cycles. Finally, the charging temperature was found to have the most statistically significant impact on the temporarily evolving LiPo battery impedance, a measure of its degradation