Energy efficient battery management

A challenging aspect of mobile communications consists in exploring ways in which the available run time of terminals can be maximized. We present a detailed electrochemical battery model and a simple stochastic model that captures the fundamental behavior of the battery. The stochastic model is then matched to the electrochemical model and used to investigate battery management techniques that may improve the energy efficiency of radio communication devices. We consider an array of electrochemical cells. Through simple scheduling algorithms, the discharge from each cell is properly shaped to optimize the charge recovery mechanism, without introducing any additional delay in supplying the required power. Then, a battery management scheme, which exploits knowledge of the cells' state of charge, is implemented to achieve a further improvement in the battery performance. In this case, the discharge demand may be delayed. Results indicate that the proposed battery management techniques improve system performance no matter which parameters values are chosen to characterize the cells' behavior.