Recharging Probably Keeps Batteries Alive

TL;DR

This paper enhances the kinetic battery model by incorporating randomness and capacity bounds, enabling better prediction of battery depletion risks in real-world scenarios like nano satellite missions.

Contribution

It introduces a modified kinetic battery model that accounts for stochastic charging/discharging and capacity limits, improving real-world battery behavior prediction.

Findings

Model effectively predicts battery depletion risk over time.

Application to nano satellite mission demonstrates practical utility.

Provides a framework for dynamic battery risk assessment.

Abstract

The kinetic battery model is a popular model of the dynamic behavior of a conventional battery, useful to predict or optimize the time until battery depletion. The model however lacks certain obvious aspects of batteries in-the-wild, especially with respect to (i) the effects of random influences and (ii) the behavior when charging up to capacity bounds. This paper considers the kinetic battery model with bounded capacity in the context of piecewise constant yet random charging and discharging. The resulting model enables the time-dependent evaluation of the risk of battery depletion. This is exemplified in a power dependability study of a nano satellite mission.