This Small Business Innovative Research program will develop intelligent Lithium-ion 6T MIL-PRF-32565 Compliant Battery Maintenance and Charger Systems. The US DoD has been developing 6T Li-ion alternatives to the existing starting, lighting, and ignition (SLI) lead acid batteries used on weapon systems and transport vehicles. In this project, Xilectric will design an intelligent lithium-ion battery charging, diagnostics, and task-assignment station, and will implement a prototype capable of charging 6T batteries efficiently and quickly. The charger will communicate with the 6T units via CAN bus to enable tailoring operations for specific vendors and products, to download firmware updates, and to receive battery state information. The charger will be designed to optimize the rate at which multiple mission-critical 6T units can be charged. System algorithms will calculate, under the constraints of external power available to the charger and the level of energy present in excess 6T units connected, the proper distribution of charge rate to the batteries. The charger will also run diagnostics on the 6T units while charging in order to complement the state of health information available from the battery management systems included with the 6T units.
