SI Robot Charge™: Governed Battery and Charging Safety for Robots, in which Each Battery Pack Carries an Attested Identity and Health Record, Robots Charge Only at Certified Chargers after a Mutual Check, Charging Is Limited by Measured Battery Health and Place, a Battery Showing Signs of Thermal Runaway Brings the Robot to a Safe Place away from People and Exits, and Fire Services Are Given the Battery's Record at Once

Inventor(s)

• Edward D. H. Wang, SI OrganizationFollow

Abstract

This disclosure describes a method of governing the batteries and charging of robots. Each battery pack carries an attested identity and a signed health record, including its chemistry, capacity, cycle count, temperature history, faults and any repair, and the record follows the pack through every robot it serves and every change of hands. A robot charges only at a certified charger, and before charging begins the robot and the charger verify each other's credentials and the battery's record; an uncertified, counterfeit or recalled pack is refused. Charging rate and state-of-charge limits are set by the pack's measured health and by the place: for example, slower charging and lower limits for an ageing pack, and declared limits for chargers indoors, near exits or where people sleep. The robot's safe-state map declares, for each place, where a robot with a battery showing early signs of thermal runaway should go: a declared safe area away from people, exits and other robots, where it isolates itself and signals. On such signs, the robot stops charging, moves there if it can do so safely, alerts people nearby, notifies its SI Manager and, where declared, calls the fire service, giving responders the battery's chemistry, size and location at once. Every check, refusal, limit, event and alert is a signed record, and battery findings propagate to other packs of the same batch through the supply-chain records.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Wang, Edward D. H., "SI Robot Charge™: Governed Battery and Charging Safety for Robots, in which Each Battery Pack Carries an Attested Identity and Health Record, Robots Charge Only at Certified Chargers after a Mutual Check, Charging Is Limited by Measured Battery Health and Place, a Battery Showing Signs of Thermal Runaway Brings the Robot to a Safe Place away from People and Exits, and Fire Services Are Given the Battery's Record at Once", Technical Disclosure Commons, ()
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/13006