Smart Battery Primer

Rapid increases in product performance and features along with demands for longer operating life have driven designers of battery based electronics to consider significant changes in product design. These include using lower voltage components, turning off unused subsystems, managing applications software and developing "smarter" batteries and battery management. Designers of new battery systems need knowledge of many different, diverse and, in many cases, new fields. These fields range from battery chemistry and knowledge of how the battery operates; to system engineering and knowledge of how the various components interact; to product design and knowledge of how the user operates a particular device.