Sony Corporation

Maxim Japan Co., Ltd.

Sony Group Corporation

Yukio Tsuchiya

Hideyuki Sato

Kazuyasu Nawa

Ryoichi Nakashima

Nobutaka Saitoh

Kei Tashiro

Atsuhiro Kumagai

Masaki Sakurai

Shigeki Motoyama

Atsushi Mitani

Osamu Nagashima

Kiyotaka Murata

Ryuji Nakamichi

Hisashi Aoki

Toshihiro Koide

Toshiya Nakabayashi

Jiro Moriya

Ryota Hashizume

Masaki Sukurai

Tatsuya Yamazawa

Junya Yamada

Takashi Mutou

Disclosed is a battery including a casing including cells housed therein and a terminal part including a connection terminal connected to an electrode terminal of a connection apparatus, in which in the casing, a functional groove having a predetermined function in which a longitudinal direction coincides with a connection direction of the connection terminal and the electrode terminal is formed, and the functional groove includes a plurality of functional units having different lengths which are continuously formed. Accordingly, since there is no part that divides a functional unit between a plurality of functional units having different lengths, a size of the functional groove in a direction in which the functional units are continuous is a sum of sizes of a plurality of functional units, and thus it is possible to reduce the size of the battery while securing high functionality.

Battery and connection apparatus

A power feed unit that includes multiple first terminal sections, a second terminal section, and a switch is disclosed. Each first terminal section includes a first power supply terminal directed to receive electric power from a battery, and a first communication terminal directed to perform a communication with the battery. The second terminal section includes a second power supply terminal directed to supply electric power to an electronic apparatus, and a second communication terminal directed to perform a communication with the electronic apparatus. The switch electrically couples one of the first communication terminals with the second communication terminal.

Power feed unit and power feeding method

An electronic device includes a battery capacity computing unit configured to compute a current full-charge capacity of a currently inserted battery apparatus having secondary cells. The battery capacity computing unit acquires at least information on a full-charge capacity of the battery apparatus in a brand-new state and information on the battery charge/discharge cycle count from the battery apparatus, retains a correction coefficient used when computing the current full-charge capacity of the battery apparatus, and calculates the current full-charge capacity of the battery apparatus using the information on the full-charge capacity of the battery apparatus in a brand-new state, the information on the battery charge/discharge cycle count, and the correction coefficient.

Electronic device, battery pack, and method of computing battery pack capacity

A battery pack detachably connectable to an equipment body to supply power to the equipment body, the battery pack including a battery cell, a microcomputer for communicating with the equipment body, a connection terminal connected to the microcomputer, a positive power supply input terminal connected to a cathode of the battery cell; and a negative power supply input terminal connected to an anode of the battery cell. After the power of the equipment body is turned on, the microcomputer alternately sends to the equipment body by serial communication via the connection terminal information to be used in authentication processing executed by the equipment body and information to be used in a battery residual quantity count executed by the equipment body. After the authentication processing is complete, the microcomputer sends to the equipment body information to be used in updating the battery residual quantity count executed by the equipment body.

Battery residual quantity display method and electronic equipment

A battery device includes a battery cell including a cell terminal, a case that houses the battery cell, a battery terminal provided to the case and electrically connected to the cell terminal, and a control section that is housed in the case and allows and inhibits charge and discharge of the battery cell, wherein the control section includes a detection section that detects an output voltage value of the cell terminal at an interval, and assuming that the latest output voltage value detected by the detection section is V1, and the output voltage value detected by the detection section immediately before the latest output voltage value V1 is V0, the control section allows charge and discharge of the battery cell if |&#x394;V| (&#x394;V=V1&#x2212;V0) is smaller than a reference value, and to inhibit charge and discharge of the battery cell if |&#x394;V| is equal to and greater than the reference value.

Battery device

A remaining battery capacity indicating apparatus includes an end voltage accumulated value setting unit operable to set an accumulated value indicative of a remaining capacity of a lithium-ion secondary battery, the accumulated value being set in a fully charged state of the battery so that the accumulated value reaches zero when a voltage in the battery is a device-side end voltage. It is determined whether a battery-side end voltage which ends discharges from the lithium-ion secondary battery corresponds to the device-side end voltage. If the battery-side end voltage does not correspond to the device-side end voltage, then the accumulated value is corrected in response to the device-side end voltage. A remaining capacity of the battery, corresponding to the device-side end voltage, is calculated based on the corrected accumulated value, and the calculated remaining capacity of the battery is displayed on a display unit. If the device-side end voltage does not correspond to the battery-side end voltage, then the remaining capacity of the battery is displayed on the device side.

Calculating remaining battery capacity based on battery-side end voltage and device-side end voltage

The present invention is directed to a battery residual quantity display method for performing display of battery residual quantity of a battery pack mounted at an electronic equipment and serving to supply power to the electronic equipment. When power is turned ON, a first microcomputer () of the camera body () side serves to first acquire, by serial communication, information for battery residual quantity display from a second microcomputer () of the battery pack () side loaded at the camera body to perform battery residual quantity display on the basis of the acquired information to subsequently acquire, by serial communication, information for authentication processing from the second microcomputer of the battery pack side to perform an authentication processing for judging on the basis of the acquired information as to whether or not the battery pack connected to the camera body is genuine battery pack to update, after the authentication processing, the content of the battery residual quantity display on the basis of information for battery residual quantity display acquired by serial communication from the microcomputer of the battery pack side.

A battery residual capacity information feeding device is disclosed. The device includes: residual capacity holding means for holding the battery residual capacity of a battery pack; temperature measuring means for measuring a temperature in the battery pack; and residual capacity correcting means for generating a correction quantity of the battery residual capacity on the basis of the temperature and the battery residual capacity, to feed the battery residual capacity corrected with the correction quantity.

Battery pack and residual capacity information feeding device including residual capacity correction unit

It is aimed at stably implementing a protection function of a secondary battery mainly under software control and providing a battery pack characterized by a reduced circuit installation area, parts costs, and power consumption. An AD converter outputs a voltage value between a positive electrode and a negative electrode of a secondary battery. Based on the voltage value, a microcontroller determines a state of the secondary battery out of overcharge, normal operation, and over-discharge states. According to the determined state, the microcontroller controls operations of a discharge current cutoff means and a charge current cutoff means via a FET driver. When it is determined that the secondary battery is placed in an overcurrent state based on the charge and discharge current size of the secondary battery, an overcurrent detection circuit enables the discharge current cutoff means to be a cutoff state in preference to control by the microcontroller.

Battery pack, battery protection processing apparatus and control method thereof

A battery apparatus is provided, in which even if a battery thereof is used under the low temperature environment or the battery has been charged/discharged many times, by changing and setting the end voltage that ends the discharge from the battery cell on the basis of the property of the battery, the dischargeable period can be extended. A battery apparatus for controlling an operation by detecting a charge/discharge state of a battery cell, which is chargeable/dischargeable, to supply a power source voltage to an electronic apparatus, includes: end voltage setting means for setting an end voltage that ends the discharge from the battery cell on the basis of a discharge property of the battery cell; and an end a voltage controller for varying and controlling a setting of the end voltage in accordance with a condition of the battery cell being used.

Battery apparatus and discharge controlling method of battery apparatus

To reduce calculation errors of remaining batter power so as to take into account capacity diminutions due to cycle degradation and temperature, a remaining power calculation device specifies a temperature correction value for calculation of remaining battery power corresponding to temperature, from among temperature correction values changed every predetermined number of charge/discharge cycles stored in a correction value storage device, on the basis of a temperature of a battery cell measured by a temperature measurement device and the number of charge/discharge cycles counted by a charge/discharge counting device, and calculates remaining battery power corresponding to the specified temperature correction value. Temperature correction values changed every predetermined number of charge/discharge cycles are used instead of setting different temperature correction values for all charge/discharge cycles, whereby correction of remaining battery power based on cycle degradation and temperature is performed with a small number of parameters.

Battery pack and remaining battery power calculation method

A battery pack which stably implements a protection function of a secondary battery mainly under software control and reduces a circuit installation area and parts costs. The battery pack has a discharge current cutoff means and a charge current cutoff means for selectively cutting off discharge and charge currents of the secondary battery. The battery pack has a protection process means for controlling operations of the discharge current cutoff means and the charge current cutoff means in accordance with an inter-electrode voltage between positive and negative electrodes of the secondary battery. The battery pack executes an initialization process for the protection process means at a timing when a power supply voltage supplied to the protection process means reaches lowest voltage to start the protection process means. Further, the battery pack sets a threshold voltage needed for operation control of the discharge current cutoff means and the charge current cutoff means to start the protection process at another timing when the power supply voltage reaches voltage that is higher than lowest voltage and is smaller than or equal to a voltage for stable driving.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Yukio Tsuchiya