This application claims the benefit of Taiwan patent application No. 105110003, filed on Mar. 30, 2016, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
The present disclosure relates generally to a battery management system and a method of operating the same, and more particularly to a wireless battery management system and a method of operating the same.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,772,850 discloses a wireless battery tester with information encryption means.
The external receiving system 145 includes a receiver/transceiver 146 having an antenna 147, an output unit 148 and a computing device 150 having a memory unit 152. The computing device 150 is connected to the receiver/transceiver 146 to receive the battery test results transmitted from the communication circuitry 142 and store the battery test results in the memory unit 152.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,774,151 discloses a wireless battery monitor.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,958,998 discloses an electronic battery tester with network communication.
However, the above-mentioned U.S. Patents do not disclose an app-based user interface for realization of test and management of a battery tester, thus causing inconvenience of testing and managing the battery tester.
An objective of the present disclosure is to provide a wireless battery management system to introduce an app-based user interface to solve the problem of inconvenience of testing and managing the battery tester.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objective, the wireless battery management system is configured for managing at least one battery unit. The wireless battery management system includes at least one battery tester and a wireless terminal apparatus. The at least one battery tester is electrically connected to the least one battery unit and configured to test and monitor the at least one battery unit. The wireless terminal apparatus includes a wireless communication unit, a display unit and a user interface. The wireless communication unit is configured to provide a wireless communication protocol to be wirelessly connected to the at least one battery tester. The user interface is displayed on the display unit and operates an application program of the wireless terminal apparatus, wherein the application program is executed by the wireless terminal apparatus to provide a test and monitor function to control the at least one battery tester to test and monitor the at least one battery unit correspondingly connected to the at least one battery tester.
Accordingly, the friendly and convenient user interface is provided to show states of the battery units under test in detail via an audible manner, lighting, texts, graphics, or animations, thus increasing readability of the battery test results and flexibility and diversification of representing the battery test results, and also increasing convenience of monitoring and sharing the battery test results.
Another objective of the present disclosure is to provide a method of operating a wireless battery management system to introduce an app-based user interface to solve the problem of inconvenience of testing and managing the battery tester.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objective, the wireless battery management system has at least one battery tester electrically connected to at least one battery unit and a wireless terminal apparatus having a wireless communication unit, a display unit, and a user interface, wherein the user interface is displayed on the display unit and configured to operate an application program of the wireless terminal apparatus, and the application program is executed by the wireless terminal apparatus to communicate with the at least one battery tester correspondingly connected to the at least one battery unit. The method includes steps of: establishing a connection between the wireless terminal apparatus and the at least one battery tester; controlling the at least one battery tester to execute a test and monitor function by the wireless terminal apparatus; setting a battery testing parameter, battery monitoring parameter and battery tester monitoring data on the wireless terminal apparatus; executing the test and monitor function by the wireless terminal apparatus; and outputting testing and monitoring results from the wireless terminal apparatus.
Accordingly, the friendly and convenient user interface is provided to show states of the battery units under test in detail via an audible manner, lighting, texts, graphics, or animations, thus increasing readability of the battery test results and flexibility and diversification of representing the battery test results, and also increasing convenience of monitoring and sharing the battery test results.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the present disclosure as claimed. Other advantages and features of the present disclosure will be apparent from the following description, drawings and claims.
The features of the present disclosure believed to be novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The present disclosure itself, however, may be best understood by reference to the following detailed description of the present disclosure, which describes an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Reference will now be made to the drawing figures to describe the present disclosure in detail.
The wireless terminal apparatus 10 provides at least one wireless communication topology, and the at least one wireless communication topology is, but not limited, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, GSM, GPRS, 3G, or 4G. The wireless terminal apparatus 10 is wirelessly connected to the battery tester 20 and the remote terminal device 40 according to the used wireless communication topology. The battery tester 20 is connected to the battery unit 30 by battery clips or o-rings and is used to test the battery unit 30.
For the smart phone, the application program is a mobile application also called an App. As shown in
The battery tester 20 includes a communication unit 21, a processing unit 22, a testing circuit 23, an environment sensing unit 24 and a power supplying unit 25. In the present disclosure, the environment sensing unit 24 and the power supplying unit 25 are optional according to the actual requirement of the user. The environment sensing unit 24 is used to sense external environmental parameters, such as temperature, humidity, or coordinates. The external environmental parameters sensed by the environment sensing unit 24 are sent to the processing unit 22 and processed or calculated by the processing unit 22.
The battery tester 20 is supplied with power via an external power source. Once the external power source fails, the power supplying unit 25 is used to provide required power to the battery tester 20. When the optional units are all used, the processing unit 22 is connected to the communication unit 21, the testing circuit 23, the environment sensing unit 24, the input apparatus 50 and the output apparatus 60. In the wireless battery management system, the processing unit 22 plays a role of controlling the peripheral units and apparatuses to collect and process data.
A bi-directional or single-directional communication is established between the processing unit 22 and the communication unit 21. In particular, a communication interface, such as UART, I2C, or SPI is used for communication between the processing unit 22 and the communication unit 21. The communication unit 21 transmits data to other units or receives data from other units in a wired manner or a wireless manner.
In this embodiment, the exchanged data of the battery testers 20 include: check and update of firmware versions, check and update of parameters and test of battery states. For the check and update of firmware versions, each battery tester 20 has the capability of mutually checking and updating firmware version since each battery tester 20 has the wireless communication capability. The battery tester 20 with the latest firmware version could overwrite the latest firmware version for any other battery tester 20 with the older firmware version once an older firmware version of any other battery tester 20 is found, thus accomplishing check and update of firmware version.
For the check and update of the parameters, each battery tester 20 has the capability of mutually checking and updating parameters after the wireless terminal apparatus 10 updates parameters of any one of the battery testers 20. The battery tester 20 with the latest parameters could overwrite the latest parameters for any other battery tester 20 with the older parameters once older parameters of any other battery tester 20 are found, thus accomplishing check and update of parameters.
For the test of battery state, the user interface 13 of the mobile application is operated to control at least one battery tester 20 to test battery states of the corresponding battery unit 30. The wireless terminal apparatus 10 first transmits a battery test command to one of the battery testers 20, and the battery tester 20 first receiving the battery test command is referred to as a starting battery tester. Afterward, the starting battery tester transmits the battery test command to other battery testers 20, and then these battery testers 20 transmit battery test results thereof to the starting battery tester. Finally, the starting battery tester receives the battery test results and transmits the battery test results to the wireless terminal apparatus 10.
First, the mobile application is installed in the wireless terminal apparatus 10, and then the wireless battery management system is operated by executing the mobile application (S10). The user can manually execute the mobile application or the wireless terminal apparatus 10 automatically starts to establish a connection between the wireless terminal apparatus 10 and the battery tester 20 (S20). Afterward, a testing and monitoring function is selected (S30) to test and monitor the battery unit 30 or a record viewing function is selected (S40) to view historic records of the battery unit 30 according to the actual requirement of the user.
1. The descriptions of the testing and monitoring function. Before being tested and monitored, the battery unit under test has to be connected to the corresponding battery tester 20. After the battery unit under test is connected to the battery tester 20, the user can set battery testing parameters, battery monitoring parameters and battery tester monitoring data via the user interface 13 (S31). The operations of the user interface 13 can be shown in, but not limited by,
As shown in
2. The descriptions of the record viewing function. The user can select an option “TEST RECORDS” in the function page on the user interface 13 as shown in
After the step (S40), the user can select a cloud service (S60). The wireless terminal apparatus 10 is wirelessly connected to the remote terminal device 40, such as a cloud server by logging in a cloud account as shown in
In this embodiment, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 is the host and the battery tester 20 is the client for further demonstration as follows. When the communication connection is started up, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 actively searches for peripheral connectable battery tester(s) (S71). In particular, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 selects the eligible battery tester(s) according to device names or reading/writing conditions.
When the eligible connectable battery tester 20 is selected, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 or the battery tester 20 actively or the user manually submits a handshaking connection request to execute a handshaking connection procedure by existing or user-defined communication protocols (S72). In particular, an authentication and an establishment of the handshaking connection request are accomplished after confirming with identifications of characters (or strings) or procedures.
After a handshaking connection of testing battery is accomplished, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 (host) sends a battery testing command to the connected battery tester 20 (S73) so as to notify the battery tester 20 to get ready to test the battery unit under test. In particular, a format and content of the battery testing command is already defined by the wireless terminal apparatus 10 and the battery tester 20.
After the battery tester 20 receives the battery testing command sent from the wireless terminal apparatus 10, the battery tester 20 replies an acknowledgment command with the same content as the battery testing command to the wireless terminal apparatus 10 (S74) so as to notify the wireless terminal apparatus 10 that the battery tester 20 has received an indication of testing the battery unit under test. Afterward, the battery tester 20 tests the battery unit under test (S75) and transmits test results to the wireless terminal apparatus 10 (S76).
After the step (S74), the wireless terminal apparatus 10 receives the acknowledgment command and compares the acknowledgment command with the battery testing command (S77). If the acknowledgment command is not identical to the battery testing command, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 does not receive the test results transmitted from the battery tester 20 and resends the battery testing command to the connected battery tester 20 (S73). On the contrary, if the acknowledgment command is identical to the battery testing command, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 receives the test results transmitted from the battery tester 20 and outputs the test results. Also, the test results are viewed or processed for warning abnormal state of the battery unit under test (S78). The above-mentioned connection manner between the wireless terminal apparatus 10 and the battery tester 20 is referred to as a three-way handshaking protocol, i.e., the connection request, the acknowledgment of the connection request and the acknowledgment of the connection establishment are sequentially performed.
In this embodiment, the battery tester 20 is the host and the wireless terminal apparatus 10 is the client for further demonstration as follows. When the communication connection is started up, both the battery tester 20 and the wireless terminal apparatus 10 can actively search for peripheral connectable wireless terminal apparatus 10 or battery tester(s) (S81),(S81′). In particular, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 selects the eligible wireless terminal apparatus or battery tester(s) according to device names or reading/writing conditions.
When the eligible connectable battery tester 10 or battery tester 20 is selected, the battery tester 20 or the wireless terminal apparatus 10 actively or the user manually submits a handshaking connection request to execute a handshaking connection procedure by existing or user-defined communication protocols (S82). In particular, an authentication and an establishment of the handshaking connection request are accomplished after confirming with identifications of characters (or strings) or procedures.
After a handshaking connection of testing battery is accomplished, the battery tester 20 (host) tests the battery unit under test (S83) and then sends a battery testing receiving command to the connected wireless terminal apparatus 10 (S84) so as to notify the wireless terminal apparatus 10 that the battery tester 20 has tested the battery unit under test. In particular, a format and content of the battery testing receiving command is already defined by the wireless terminal apparatus 10 and the battery tester 20.
After the wireless terminal apparatus 10 receives the battery testing receiving command sent from the battery tester 20, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 replies an acknowledgment command with the same content as the battery testing receiving command to the battery tester 20 (S85) so as to notify the battery tester 20 that the wireless terminal apparatus 10 has been ready to receive test results of the battery unit under test.
After the step (S85), the battery tester 20 receives the acknowledgment command and compares the acknowledgment command with the battery testing receiving command (S86). If the acknowledgment command is not identical to the battery testing receiving command, the battery tester 20 does not transmit the test results to the wireless terminal apparatus 10 and resends the battery testing receiving command to the wireless terminal apparatus 10 (S84). On the contrary, if the acknowledgment command is identical to the battery testing receiving command, the battery tester 20 transmits the test results to the wireless terminal apparatus 10 (S87) and outputs the test results. Also, the test results are viewed or processed for warning abnormal state of the battery unit under test (S88). In addition, the wireless terminal apparatus 10 can analyze, compute, or sort the test results transmitted from the battery tester 20 (S89). The above-mentioned connection manner between the wireless terminal apparatus 10 and the battery tester 20 is referred to as a three-way handshaking protocol, i.e., the connection request, the acknowledgment of the connection request and the acknowledgment of the connection establishment are sequentially performed.
In conclusion, the present disclosure has the following advantages:
1. The user interface 13 of the mobile application is used by the user to operate the wireless terminal apparatus 10 to control and set the battery tester 20 by a wireless communication manner so as to test and monitor the corresponding battery unit 30 connected to the battery tester 20 and also share and backup test results;
2. The friendly and convenient user interface 13 is provided to show states of the battery units under test in detail via an audible manner, lighting, texts, graphics, or animations, thus increasing readability of the battery test results and flexibility and diversification of representing the battery test results, and also increasing convenience of monitoring and sharing the battery test results; and
3. The wireless terminal apparatus 10 provides the display unit 12 for displaying the test results or historic records or operating the operation functions so that no extra liquid crystal display is necessary for the battery tester 20, thus reducing costs of production.
Although the present disclosure has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood that the present disclosure is not limited to the details thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the foregoing description, and others will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the present disclosure as defined in the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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105110003 | Mar 2016 | TW | national |