Legacy, Existing, Future Aviation Battery Universal Caretaking Unit

K. Kresge, K. Rickert
Battelle Memorial Institute, Ohio, United States

Keywords: Lithium-Ion, Nickel-Cadmium, Lead Acid, charging, discharging

Rechargeable battery technologies and capacities continue to advance, making them increasingly critical to aircraft for subsystems, engine starting, and utility applications. The comparatively rapid pace of battery advancement versus aircraft phase out results in several different battery chemistries and capacities being simultaneously deployed on joint aviation platforms. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are rapidly becoming the preferred battery solution for newly developed Department of Defense (DoD) platforms, while legacy systems employ lead acid (Pb acid) or nickel cadmium (NiCad) batteries. Battelle intends to solve these problems by leveraging our existing expertise in battery charger and discharger design and construction to design, test, and deliver a prototype universal charger that can maintain, analyze, charge, and discharge Pb acid, NiCad, and Li-ion batteries with the wide range of electrical properties employed in the DoD community. Technical performance is only one facet of the universal charger’s use case. Battelle’s intended design directly replaces the legacy chargers without any alterations to existing equipment mounts and harnesses. . Furthermore, the charger’s expanded capabilities make it compatible with batteries beyond the aviation industry, such as the 6T ground battery.