JPH05333974A - Battery control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the battery control system accurately controlling the remaining amount of energy of a battery unit to be used for driving an electronic equipment. CONSTITUTION:A battery unit 12 is connected to a main unit 11, and a power switch 17 is turned on to start a maintenance program. A CPU 21 reads the remaining energy time data in a battery section 13 from a RAM 14 in the battery unit 12 and stores it in an energy consumption table 25. Then, in response to an IORQ signal which is outputted at every constant interval of cycle from an RTC24, the CPU 21 polls and fetches the operation state of devices such as FDD31, HDD32,... or an IO port. The updated remaining energy time is successively calculated by referring to the routine energy consumption for each device in the energy consumption table 25, which is written in the RAM 14 of the battery unit 12.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a battery management system for managing batteries used in battery-powered electronic equipment.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, various battery-operated devices have appeared in various electronic equipment fields as the devices have been downsized.
For example, a portable notebook computer or a video camera employs a rechargeable battery unit having a freely attachable / detachable structure, which can be used by connecting it to the apparatus body. ..

In such a battery-driven device, various measures have been taken in order to secure its operation time as long as possible. For example, in the above-mentioned notebook computer, a method of reducing the processing speed when there is no operation to the device for a certain period of time, or temporarily stopping the display of the liquid crystal display device (LCD) or lowering the LCD backlight brightness Has been taken. Of course, attempts have been made to increase the charging capacity itself of the battery unit.

[0004]

However, the conventional battery unit only has a battery function, and does not have a function of quantitatively notifying the user how much energy remaining in the battery.

On the other hand, for example, when trying to measure the remaining energy level from the output voltage of the battery, since the voltage change appears only just before the remaining energy level becomes almost zero, the remaining energy level can be accurately grasped by this method. It was difficult.

For this reason, the user has roughly estimated the remaining amount of energy by checking the total usage time since the last charging. However, in this method, since the total usage time must be integrated, the management becomes complicated, and it is difficult to accurately check the usage time each time. In particular, when two or more battery units are appropriately replaced and used, it is necessary to individually manage the total usage time, which makes checking extremely complicated.

Further, the energy consumption of the device depends on its operating mode (for example, the above-mentioned LC in the case of a notebook computer).
Since it greatly differs depending on the display state of the D display, the backlight brightness, the operating speed of the CPU, etc.), the battery remaining amount could not be accurately predicted even if the total usage time of the device was completely checked.

As described above, the conventional battery unit has a problem that the remaining energy level cannot be accurately controlled.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a battery management system capable of accurately managing the energy remaining amount of a battery unit used for driving an electronic device. To do.

[0010]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a battery management system, which includes an apparatus main body including a plurality of devices and a device detachably connected to the apparatus main body to drive each device. In an electronic device including a battery unit that supplies energy for use, a battery unit includes a storage unit that stores the remaining amount of energy of the battery unit, and energy consumed by the operation of each device in the main body of the device. It is characterized by including a calculation means for calculating the amount, and writing the updated remaining amount obtained by subtracting the consumed energy amount from the remaining energy amount in the storage unit of the battery unit. A battery management system according to a second aspect of the present invention includes an apparatus main body configured to include a plurality of devices, and a battery unit detachably connected to the apparatus main body to supply driving energy to each device. In an electronic device including, in the battery unit, including a storage unit for storing the energy remaining amount of the battery unit, (i) device monitoring means for monitoring the operating state of each device at predetermined time intervals, , (Ii) a table storing the energy consumption of each device corresponding to a predetermined time interval, (iii) a reading means for reading the remaining energy amount from the storage unit of the battery unit, and (iv) a predetermined time interval. , The energy remaining amount read by the reading unit and the corresponding consumption energy in the table according to the operating state of each device obtained from the device monitoring unit. A calculating means for successively calculating the latest energy remaining amount at each time point based on the amount of energy and (v) a writing means for writing the latest energy remaining amount obtained by this calculating means into a storage unit in the battery unit. And have.

A battery management system according to a third aspect of the present invention is the battery management system according to the second aspect, further comprising battery unit monitoring means for monitoring whether or not the battery unit is in a fully charged state. When the monitoring means detects the fully charged state of the battery unit, the latest energy remaining amount is set as the energy remaining amount at the time of full charging.

[0012]

In the battery management system according to the first aspect of the present invention, a new energy remaining amount obtained by subtracting the consumed energy amount from the energy remaining amount stored in the battery unit is written in the storage unit.

In the battery management system according to the second aspect of the invention, the predetermined time interval is based on the energy remaining amount read from the storage unit of the battery unit and the energy consumption amount of each device stored in the table. The latest remaining energy is calculated at and is written in the storage unit of the battery unit.

In the battery management system according to the third aspect of the present invention, when the battery unit is fully charged, the energy remaining amount in the table is calculated as the energy remaining amount regardless of the value of the energy remaining time read from the battery unit. The energy remaining amount at the time of full charge is adopted, and the energy remaining amount of the battery unit is calculated.

[0015]

Embodiments will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. Here, a battery-powered notebook type personal computer will be described as an example.

FIG. 1 shows a main configuration of a laptop computer to which a battery management system according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. This laptop computer has a main unit 1
1 and a battery unit 12 detachably connected to the main body 11.

The battery unit 12 includes a rechargeable power storage unit 13 and a random access memory (RAM) 14 for storing data indicating the amount of energy stored in the power storage unit 13. This RAM14
Are backed up by the power storage unit 13. RAM
As the data stored in 14, the operable time of the device corresponding to the remaining amount of energy in power storage unit 13 (hereinafter referred to as remaining energy time) is used.

A power supply board 16 which starts its operation when the power switch 17 is turned on is provided in the main body 11 and receives a DC voltage supplied from the power storage unit 13 of the battery unit 12 or an AC adapter (not shown). In addition, a voltage for driving various devices in the main body described later is output.

The power supply board 16 receives power from the AC adapter when the AC adapter is inserted, and receives power from the battery unit 12 when the AC adapter is not inserted. Further, when the AC adapter is inserted and the battery unit 12 is connected, the battery unit 12 is charged by the power source supplied via the AC adapter. The power supply board 16 monitors the charging of the battery unit 12, sets the full charge status 39 indicating that when the battery unit 12 is fully charged to “H”, and notifies the full charge status port 36 described later of the fully charged state. It is supposed to do.

A CPU 21 for controlling the operation of the entire apparatus is provided in the main body 11 and is operated by a CPU clock output from a clock control (CLKCTL) port 37 described later. .. The CPU 21 has a main memory 22 and a real-time clock (RTC) 2 which will be described below, via a data bus 18.
4, connected to various other devices and input / output (IO) ports, and IO to these devices and IO ports
It outputs a read signal (IORD) and an IO write signal (IOWR).

(I) Main memory 22: A memory composed of, for example, a DRAM or the like, in which a program applied to this apparatus is stored. Read command from CPU 21 (MEMR
D), a command such as a write command (MEMWR) and an address signal (not shown) are used for control. Read / write data is transferred via the data bus 18.

(Ii) RTC 24: Sends an interrupt request signal (IRQ) to the CPU 21 at a constant cycle.

(Iii) Battery unit RAM control circuit 3
1: Data read / write control for the RAM 14 in the battery unit 12 is performed by the write signal (WR), the read signal (RD), and the chip select signal (CS).

(Iv) Floppy disk device (FDD) 3
2: Various application programs and necessary data are stored and can be accessed as needed. The spindle motor is stopped except when accessing. CPU21
The operation state (access state / non-access state) is read by the IORD signal from and is transferred to the CPU 21 via the data bus 18.

(V) Hard disk device (HDD) 33:
It is a large-capacity data storage device, and normally the spindle motor is rotating even when it is not accessed, but it can be stopped if necessary. By the IORD signal,
The operating state (during spindle rotation / stopped) is read and transferred to the CPU 21.

(Vi) LCD power supply (LCD POWER) port 34: An input / output (IO) port for on / off control of a drive power supply of a liquid crystal display (LCD) not shown.
The operation state (display / non-display) is read by the IORD signal and transferred to the CPU 21.

(Vii) LCD backlight power supply (FLPO
WER) port 35: An IO port for on / off control of the fluorescent lamp tube unit for LCD backlight. IORD
The operation status (lighting / lighting off) is read by the signal,
It is transferred to the CPU 21. (viii) Full charge status port 36: The charge state (full charge / insufficient charge) of the battery unit 12 is read by the IORD signal, and the CPU 2
Forwarded to 1.

(Ix) CLKCTL port 37: oscillator (O
The operation clock output from the SC) 23 is output to the CPU 21. The operation clock speed (high speed / low speed) of the CPU 21 is read by the IORD signal and transferred to the CPU 21.

Next, the operation of the battery management system having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIGS.

First, the battery unit 12 is attached to the main body 11
Then, when the power switch 17 is turned on, the battery maintenance program is started. When the battery maintenance program is activated, first, the battery unit RAM control circuit 31 causes the RA in the battery unit 12 to operate.
The remaining energy time is read from M14 (step S101 in FIG. 2) and is written in the remaining energy storage section of the consumed energy table 25 in the main memory 22 (step S102).

FIG. 4 shows this energy consumption table 25.
It represents the contents of. In this table, the rated value of the amount of energy consumed by each of the above-described devices during a certain period T described later is stored in units of time, and the latest energy remaining time 26 of the battery unit 12 is stored. It has become so. For example,
When the FDD 32 operates for the time T, it indicates that the remaining energy time 26 decreases by "0.12 minutes". The same applies to other devices. The maximum value of the remaining energy time, that is, the value when fully charged is 12
0 minutes.

The RTC 24 outputs the IRQ signal to the CPU 21 at a constant cycle T (for example, every 10 seconds).
After connecting the battery unit 12, the CPU 21 outputs an IORD signal to the full charge status port 36 in response to the IRQ signal to read the full charge status. When the full charge status thus read is "H" (step S103; Y), the CPU 21 sets the energy remaining time 26 of the energy consumption table 25 to 120 minutes (step S104), and then the full charge. The status is reset to "L" (step S121). Thereby, for example, even if the value read from the RAM 14 of the battery unit 12 is "110 minutes", this is rewritten to the correct initial value (120 minutes) (step S1).
04). Next, the CPU 21 moves the RTC 24 to the IORD.
Each time a signal is input (step S105), the above (i
Polling is performed by sequentially outputting the IORD signal to the devices or IO ports (excluding the full-charge status port 36) shown in v) to (ix), reading the data indicating the respective status from each device or IO port, and reading each status. To judge.

As a result, when the FDD 32 is in the access state (step S106; Y), the FDD consumed energy (0.12 minutes) is subtracted from the remaining energy time by referring to the consumed energy table 25 (step S10).
7) Write the new remaining energy time thus obtained in the consumed energy table 25. On the other hand, when it is not in the access state (step S106; N), the process proceeds to step S108 without updating the remaining energy time.

When the HDD 33 is in the operating state (step S108; Y), the HDD energy consumption (0.06 minutes) is subtracted from the remaining energy time (step S10).
9) Write the new remaining energy time thus obtained in the energy consumption table 25. On the other hand, when it is not in the operating state (step S108; N), the process proceeds to step S110 without updating the remaining energy time.

When the LCD power is on (step S110; Y), the LCD energy consumption (0.01 minutes) is subtracted from the remaining energy time (step S11).
1) Write the new remaining energy time thus obtained in the energy consumption table 25. On the other hand, in the off state (step S110; N), the process proceeds to step S112 without updating the remaining energy time.

When the LCD backlight is on (step S112; Y), L
The energy consumption of the CD backlight (0.03 minutes) is reduced (step S113), and the new energy remaining time obtained by this is written in the energy consumption table 25. On the other hand, in the off state (step S112;
N), step S11 without updating the remaining energy time
3 (FIG. 3).

When the CPU is in the high-speed operating state (step S114; Y in FIG. 3), the CPU energy consumption during high-speed operation (0.04 minutes) is subtracted from the remaining energy time (step S115). The remaining energy time is written in the consumed energy table 25. on the other hand,
When in the low speed operation state (step S114; N), the CPU energy consumption during low speed operation (0.02 minutes) is subtracted from the energy remaining time (step S116), and the new energy remaining time obtained by this is consumed energy. Write on table 25.

Here, the CPU 21 checks the value of the remaining energy time, and if it is 5 minutes or less (step S117; Y), gives a warning to the user by a BEEP sound or LED display (step S118). Then, the battery unit RAM control circuit 31 sets the latest remaining energy time to the RA of the battery unit 12.
Write to M14 (step S120).

Such a series of processing (step S105)
~ S120) is performed at a constant cycle T according to the IORQ signal from the RTC 24 described above, and the battery unit 12
The remaining energy time will be sequentially updated.

In this way, in this embodiment, the energy remaining time of the power storage unit 13 of the battery unit 12 is obtained by sequentially subtracting the energy consumption of each device inside the main unit, and this is calculated. R
Can be written to AM14.

In this embodiment, the battery unit 1
Although the RAM is used as the memory provided in the memory 2, a non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM can be used.

Further, in this embodiment, the energy consumption of the LCD backlight is uniformly set to "0.03 minutes" at the time of lighting, but the rated value corresponding to the brightness of the LCD backlight is held in the table and the brightness is kept. It is also possible to check the value of the electronic volume for adjustment and calculate the remaining energy time based on the corresponding consumed energy.

Further, for other devices, the remaining energy time may be calculated by using the energy consumption according to the more subdivided operating state, whereby the remaining energy time can be calculated more accurately. It can be calculated.

Further, in this embodiment, the main CPU for controlling the original operation of the device is also used for battery management, but the present invention is not limited to this, and a dedicated CPU is separately provided for battery management. You may do it.

[0045]

As described above, according to the first and second aspects of the present invention, the battery unit is provided with the storage portion for storing the remaining energy amount, and the device reads the remaining energy amount for each device. The remaining amount of energy is updated by subtracting the energy consumption of the battery unit, and this is written in the storage unit of the battery unit. Therefore, even when multiple battery units are exchanged and used, each battery unit The remaining energy level can be managed for each. Further, unlike the conventional case, the user does not have to check the usage time one by one, and the remaining energy level is managed finely according to the operating state of each device, so that there is an effect that considerably accurate management is possible. ..

According to the third aspect of the present invention, when the battery unit is fully charged, the maximum energy remaining corresponding to the fully charged state is irrespective of the value of the remaining energy time read from the battery unit. Since the rated value is adopted, even if the energy remaining amount information in the storage unit of the battery unit becomes inaccurate for some reason, for example, by fully charging the battery unit, the accurate state is restored again. Has the effect of updating and managing the remaining energy level.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a notebook computer to which a battery unit system according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart for explaining the operation of this system.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining an operation subsequent to FIG.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of a consumed energy table.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Main Body 12 Battery Unit 13 Power Storage 14 RAM 16 Power Board 21 CPU 22 Main Memory 24 Real Time Clock (RTC) 31 Battery Unit RAM Control Circuit 39 Full Charge Status

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An electronic apparatus comprising: an apparatus main body including a plurality of devices; and a battery unit detachably connected to the apparatus main body to supply driving energy to each of the devices. The battery unit includes a storage unit that stores the amount of energy remaining in the battery unit, and the apparatus body includes a calculation unit that calculates the amount of energy consumed by the operation of each device. A battery management system, characterized in that the updated remaining amount obtained by subtracting the consumed energy amount is written in the storage unit of the battery unit. 2. An electronic apparatus including: an apparatus main body including a plurality of devices; and a battery unit detachably connected to the apparatus main body to supply driving energy to each of the devices. In the battery unit, a storage unit that stores the remaining energy of the battery unit is included, and in the apparatus body, a device monitoring unit that monitors the operating state of each device at predetermined time intervals, and at the predetermined time intervals. A table that stores the energy consumption of each corresponding device, a reading unit that reads the remaining energy amount from the storage unit of the battery unit, and an operation of each device obtained from the device monitoring unit at the predetermined time interval. Depending on the state, the energy remaining amount read by the reading means and the corresponding consumed energy of the table A calculation means for sequentially calculating the latest energy remaining amount at each time point based on the amount of charge, and a writing means for writing the latest energy remaining amount obtained by the calculation means into a storage unit in the battery unit, A battery management system comprising: 3. A battery unit monitoring means for monitoring whether or not the battery unit is fully charged is provided, and when the battery unit monitoring means detects a fully charged state of the battery unit, the latest energy remaining amount is fully charged. 3. The amount of energy remaining at time is used as the energy remaining amount.
Battery management system as described.