Universal battery management system in a handheld device

The goal of this paper is to present the implemented solution for a universal battery management system. This system is designed for usage of both smart and dumb rechargeable battery packs, regardless of the manufacturer. The implemented solution is based on a dual channel smart battery charger IC and two gas gauge ICs. The advantage of this solution is that a device main board can be powered by various battery packs. This is achieved by reprogramming EEPROM memory integrated with the smart battery management system. The result of this approach is the possibility to use batteries from different manufacturers, without any additional hardware modifications. The proposed universal battery management is implemented in a portable scanner of secure travel documents.