54 DC VELOCITY AUGUST 2016 www.dcvelocity.com
ma
te
ri
a
l
h
a
nd
l
i
n
g
u
pd
at
e
BA
T
T
E
RI
E
S
AND
CHA
RG
E
R
S
or reader out for repair, says Larry Murray, CEO of Global
Technology Systems Inc. (GTS), a provider of batteries and
management services for mobile devices.
To address those problems, GTS developed a testing
system it says can tell operators in less than five seconds
whether a battery has sufficient juice for the job. The tester,
about the size of a deck of cards, has two probes that touch
the battery’s terminal contacts. It puts a small charge into
the battery, which rebounds to the tester; that information then downloads via Bluetooth to a smartphone app.
A proprietary algorithm analyzes the results to determine
the battery’s state of health, and the app issues both visual and audible signals indicating whether the battery is
“OK” or “not OK” to use. The data are also transmitted to
GTS’s cloud-based software for compilation and further
analysis. According to Murray,
this kind of aggregate data has
never been available for mobile
device batteries before. Once the
company’s database has grown
sufficiently, GTS says, users will
be able to compare performance
among their own sites as well as
against peers.
5. Getting more performance
from the same size mobile device
battery. When it comes to batteries for mobile devices, their small
size can be both a blessing and
a curse. On the one hand, they
make the devices lighter and ergonomically comfortable
to use. On the other hand, their size limits the amount of
power they can provide over the course of a shift. Because
many of today’s devices incorporate more features and
capabilities than their predecessors did, they tend to draw
more power. For the most part, though, the size of the batteries and battery compartments haven’t changed, so power
may run out before the end of a shift, says Ken Murphy,
COO of Impact Power Technologies, a supplier of batteries
for mobile devices.
The goal, then, is to get more power and longer run times
from the same size battery. Two factors will determine
whether that’s feasible, according to Murphy. The first is
the battery’s chemistry, which differs for each manufactur-
er. The second is the battery management system, which
regulates the amount of power that goes into a battery
while charging and the amount that comes out when in
use. Find the perfect balance between input and output, and
the battery will last much longer, Murphy explains. He and
President Curt Quinter say their company has done just
that, getting 20 to 25 percent more capacity into the same
size battery pack and allowing the company to guarantee
that its batteries will run a full shift. The combination of
Japanese-made lithium-ion cells, which have the fewest
impurities, together with a proprietary battery management
system that prevents batteries from being overcharged or
overdischarged makes that possible, they say.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The experts we consulted for this article foresee more
innovations to come. Several mentioned Tesla’s research
and development efforts as potentially having an impact
on industrial motive power. In fact, we’re already seeing a
migration of concepts from consumer electric vehicles to
the industrial side. That’s where AeroVironment, which
has product lines in both areas, got the idea for its ProCore
mobile app, for example.
Advancements could also come from unexpected quar-
ters. Quinter notes that batteries built to operate in space
run for years, and that researchers are working on a battery
that’s activated by salt water and
could keep ocean buoys trans-
mitting data for up to five years.
“You don’t know what scientists
will stumble across or what com-
binations of exotic metals might
prove useful in the future,” he
says. “Sooner or later, some-
body’s going to hit on one that
will make lithium-ion batteries
run far longer than they do now.”
Murray, meanwhile, sees
potential in the high-capaci-
ty lithium polymer battery that
keeps two-way radios and other
law enforcement devices operating long after other batter-
ies have run out. His company and others are investigating
other commercial applications, including mobile devices
for warehouse use. With a partner, GTS is also looking at
wireless charging, where users won’t have to touch the bat-
tery to charge it. Ultimately, he says, the biggest improve-
ments for mobile device batteries are likely to come “not
from any breakthroughs in cell technology but from better
power management.”
It’s universally agreed that data management will be a hot
area for development for some time to come. “Chargers
will become data analysis tools for fleet management,”
Lichtenberg explains. The big question is how to integrate
the wealth of data from advanced battery management sys-
tems with forklift fleet management systems. “Everyone has
their own IP [intellectual property], and there are collabo-
rations going on within the industry because data collection
and analysis is so critical” to identifying opportunities to
improve fleet performance and proactively identify prob-
lems before they happen, he observes.
Teeter-Balin agrees, saying that tighter integration of
forklift tracking systems and battery information is a logical
next step, and that battery management tools will become
more valuable as part of total warehouse data management
programs in the future.
ONE EXAMPLE OF THE TREND TOWARD VISUALLY INTUITIVE
CONTROLS IS AEROVIRONMENT’S MOBILE APP. USERS CAN SET
UP NEW CHARGERS, CONFIGURE AND UPDATE SETTINGS, VIEW
REAL-TIME INFORMATION, AND DOWNLOAD DATA USING A
SMARTPHONE.
