A generalized ergonomic trade-off model for modularized battery systems particularly for ICT equipment

Abstract

The author and a co-inventor earlier patented a method and a subsystem to be incorporated into battery management systems for practically optimizing the ergonomics of battery system charging and discharging in a bid to tackle batteries’ long-standing conundrums of slow charging and costly charging infrastructures. The key idea is to modularize battery systems and prioritize charging and discharging of their battery modules so as to minimize periodic human effort to unload, load, and/or (re)charge the battery modules. The author also proposed earlier a mathematical trade-off model to address the ensuing issue of optimizing the extent of modularization, assuming Poisson probability distribution of depleted battery modules in each discharge cycle and zero incremental overhead mass of additional packaging materials and electronics associated with further modularization of a battery system. This article attempts to generalize the model by relaxing these two restrictive assumptions.