The use of system identification technology in the development of a battery test instrument: a technology transfer case study

Describes the development of an instrument for determining the health of standby power supply batteries, founded upon the use of system identification techniques. The work has been a collaborative venture between a university technology transfer unit and a small company and the paper details both the technological and innovation challenges that have been encountered during the course of the collaboration. Commercial battery test instruments use non-parametric methods based upon step or sine wave testing. It has however been documented in the literature that in a number of instances, these test instruments have not detected failing batteries, with costly consequences. A simple equivalent circuit is known to approximate the dynamics of a standby power supply battery and that the components of the equivalent circuit are considered to be indicators of battery health. An identification methodology has been developed that uses parametric identification techniques to estimate the equivalent circuit components. The relationship between the identified parameters and battery health is then discussed and the results of practically applying the identification technique to a range of standby power supply batteries are presented. The paper concludes by discussing lessons learnt during this collaboration from both an innovation and technology transfer perspective