AUTOOMOUS BATTERY CHARGIG IMPLEMETATIOOF THE LARGE SCALE VEHICLE 2 (LSV2) AVAL RESEARCH PLATFORM Team Zap Gap

The second Large Scale Vehicle (LSV2) used by the Navy for research is a battery powered vessel. To ensure that the acoustic data collected from this test vehicle is as undisturbed as possible by the vehicle’s propulsion motor, batteries are used. The charge time of these batteries between test runs can be up to eighteen hours long. In order to ensure that the batteries are maintained for maximum life cycle and charge retention the charging process is closely monitored by a battery technician. To ensure that the batteries receive the best possible charging conditions a custom charging algorithm was devised by students at the University of Idaho in 2009. To capitalize on their efforts, fully autonomous control of the charging variables is recommended. For this kind of supervision of the charge a sensing network already installed on the experimental vehicle will be integrated into the present charging system as feedback to close the loop in the charging control cycle and free up the battery technician for other tasks. This report is primarily comprised of secondary research gathered during the Fall 2009 semester as well as some preliminary testing of the proposed design.