Renesas — R-BMS F Battery Management Solutions

Two new all-in-one solutions from Renesas for managing lithium-ion battery packs are ideal for consumer products such as e-bikes, vacuum cleaners, robots and drones. The new R-BMS F (Renesas Battery Management System with Fixed Firmware) simplifies battery development, enabling engineers to rapidly realize designs for safe, power-efficient battery management systems. 

The R-BMS F solutions are based on a fuel gauge which consists of an MCU combined with an analog battery front end in a single package. The fuel gauge is supported by pre-programmed firmware, software, development tools and full documentation. The solutions, which are available as complete evaluation kits, are configured for lithium-ion batteries in packs of 2-4 cells in series, or 3-10 cells.  

The provision of battery management firmware is an important part of the value of the R-BMS F. The firmware monitors a battery’s state of charge, state of health, current, and temperature, as well as actively balancing cell voltages and detecting faults. The R-BMS F firmware relieves developers of the need to create the control algorithms that keep a battery operating in a safe temperature region and extend its life over many charge/discharge cycles. 

The R-BMS F solutions provide configurable options which let developers set via a graphical user interface various parameters to meet their application’s requirements, and adjust operation for different cell chemistries. 

Evaluation kits for new battery management solution 

The RTK0EF0163DK0002BU is the kit for the R-BMS F 2-4 cell series solution, operating at 8-16 V. This is suitable for handheld vacuum cleaners, robotic vacuum cleaners, small drones, consumer and medical devices. It runs on the Renesas RAJ240055 fuel gauge IC.  

The RTK0EF0136DK0002BU is the kit for the R-BMS F 3-10 cell series solution, operating at 12-40 V. This is suitable for e-bikes, e-mobility products, vacuum cleaners, robots, drones and industrial, consumer and medical systems. It runs on the Renesas RAJ240100 and RAJ240090 fuel gauge ICs.  

The kits include: 

• Pre-programmed firmware stored in embedded Flash memory with the flexibility to set parameters for the battery pack and cell chemistry  

• SMBus interface 

• GUI-based software 

• Cables to connect to the host system 

• Dedicated development tools for parameter setting 

• Documentation including schematics and an engineering bill of materials