The Plan to Improve the Portable Battery aka “BAT” 

Alex Guerrero, Timothy Khusial, Jameson Weng

The City College of New York 

What’s our Purpose?

           The purpose of this innovation is to improve the modern portable battery to be ready for the next generation. An important thing to have in mind is that technology is advancing in an exponential rate and it is our duty to be right behind it. The way we tumble up with the idea is that portable batteries got to be improved was when my group members and I saw people fighting over an outlet. There are only so many outlets available for everyone in any given location. As college students, we constantly use our devices such as phones, computers, and tablets which tend to die after a couple of hours of use. The current portable batteries have done a good job providing the energy needed to make our devices last a little longer, but they have their flaws. Portable batteries have to be charged as well, and for many, our last resource is the portable battery. We propose a portable battery named “BAT” that has different options of charging rather than just the standard USB charge.

Intro to our Innovation

            Pursuing engineering degrees, our group took a challenge to think outside the box and think about something that will help many worldwide. One of the most common issues presented right now is the limited charging options to keep all of our electronics running. Our proposal involves improving the modern portable battery to make it more convenient for daily commuters and eventually everyone. We propose a battery that incorporates a solar panel, wireless charging, USB charging, and self-generating squeeze handle. An additional feature for storage of energy is implementing a Lego style battery. In other words, a battery that can attach to a supporting battery help increase the capacity of the total battery. With this concept we should be able to charge phones, laptops, and many more electrical devices. The way we tackle this project was by dividing our research up between the members.

Compared to the average portable battery

            There are a variety of batteries made out of lithium-ion or lithium-polymer as of right now. These batteries tend to eventually lose their capacity over time like any other. For example, when batteries are between 200 up to 1000 cycles depending on the battery cell quality and chemical composition. Keep in mind that the bigger the battery is, the fewer cycles you will need to charge it and the longer it will last. The new battery we trying to improve the number of cycles and double it. According to an article, they give us prime examples of how much the battery lasts (MarketWatch). The charge stream powerstation wireless by Mophie currently is 6,040 mAh which provides +34 hours of charge in smartphones, +18 hours of charge in small tablet, and +14 hours charge for large tablets (Mophie.com). The “BAT” is eventually going to have these features with the addition of multiple of ways of charging.

Main Battery

            The main battery will include most but not all of the features. The solar panel is one of the things that my group is thinking about making it detachable. The main battery is going to have the squeeze pump generator, the USB interface, wireless charging system. The solar panel is going to have some type of attachable/detachable interface. The Lego battery is going to have some type of magnetic system preventing them from being weak detachable components.

Solar Panel

            Solar panels are a form of renewable energy that is used to harness energy from the sun. Solar panels are used in order to replace non-renewable sources of energy. They work by having cells which absorb energy. “A standard solar panel (also known as a solar module) consists of a layer of silicon cells, a metal frame, a glass casing and various wiring to allow current to flow from the silicon cells.”(energysage) The reason that silicon cells are used is because of the properties that it has. Silicon is a nonmetal with conductive properties. A solar panel works by having the sun’s rays hitting the cells the solar panel and the silicon cells absorbing the sunlight. When the light makes contact with the cells it causes the electrons to move creating an electrical current. This current flows through the wires that are in the solar panels to a solar inverter which converts the electricity from DC to AC. An inverter works by converting direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) which is the power that a house uses.

            A type of solar panel that is used is the foldable solar panel. This solar panel is a compact form of a regular solar panel and is flexible. This solar panel is also quite powerful. “Well, a standard 21w size of a portable solar panel will charge most of your USB devices like cameras, mobile phones, lantern, and two-way radios.” (Not sealed) This means that the power generated from having a solar panel can power most electronic devices. This can be used on the portable battery as a way to provide a source of power. It is strong enough to power more power heavy devices like a laptop. The way that these solar panels work is the same as a regular solar panel by having sunlight hit cells in order to produce electricity. The way that you would charge your devices with a solar panel is that it comes with a USB port to plug into your device. So, a way to attach a solar panel onto our battery would be to connect the solar cells directly to the battery using a USB port or another form of connection.  

Wireless charging

            Wireless charging is a type of technology that is utilized that allows for electronic devices to be charged without the use of a USB cable. The basic way that wireless charging works is by creating a magnetic field with a closed loop of wire. “… A magnetic loop antenna (copper wire) is used to create an oscillating magnetic field, which can create a current in one or more receiver antennas.” (Mearian) There are ways in order to increase the current by changing some of the factors in the loop. One of these ways is increasing the capacitance so that the loop is able to resonate, and this increases the amount of current that is able to be produced. By having resonance occur it allows a greater distance between the receiver which is the electronic device and the receiver. This will allow for an increase in efficiency because the device would be able to more easily receive the current. Resonance is when two things are operating at the same frequency. Also, increasing the size of the coil is able to increase distance which increases the distance the current has to travel. This allows for the increase in power.

Squeeze Panel Generator

            The squeeze panel flashlight has a hand cranking mechanism behind it and with one minute of cranking typically provides about 30 to 60 minutes of light. The lithium ion cells used are typically rated for around 500 charges. The Squeeze panel is one of the several type of motion that generates electricity for mechanically powered flashlights. Other motion to generate power would be winding a crank or shaking the flashlight itself. These are considered green technology, because the disposable batteries used by ordinary flashlights are wasteful in terms of resources used for the amount of energy produced and also contain heavy metals and toxic chemicals which end up in the environment. (Wiki, 2018)

Lego Style Battery

The Lego style battery is as it sounds, “Lego.” It is called the Lego style because we can connect the battery together and multiply it to the about consumer wants by just attaching one end of the battery to another. Of course, attaching it doesn’t mean that it would be make the battery longer horizontally but thicker vertically. As batteries are connected in parallel circuits the capacity of the battery would also multiply by the number of batteries connected.

USB

            USB (abbreviation of Universal Serial Bus) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors, communication and power supply between personal computers and their peripheral devices. USB was designed to standardize the connection of peripherals like keyboard, pointing devices, video cameras, printers, portable media players, disk drives and network adapter to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power. USB has different types varying with type A, B, and C. The difference between these types would be the shapes that is use depending on what USB types that the peripherals need for connection. They USB supplies power at 5 V ± 5% to power USB downstream devices. Type-C (Wiki, 2019)

Process on the Innovation

           Improving the portable battery itself is an enormous task which is going to take many minds to figure out. The thing about our innovation is that there are many features we are trying to feature without thinking about the weight and size of this thing. This innovation requires a lot of funding. The thing that is going to need the most funding is research but not necessary. We can make this a teachable moment for many as I look at this as a chance to create many research opportunities for many engineering students and faculty. Internships can be used to help CCNY students get real-world experience.  We need to hire some engineers to help with the design of the whole thing such as where to put the components and how they going to be used. We can rely on professors and students, since they can only do so much. When it comes to assembly and all that it gets tricky though. At first, we do not want to make too many batteries to test out the market. If we see that things are going well, and people are responding good to our product that’s when we can produce more of it and employ more people. My partners and I agreed on a 100 battery samples to start off with. With 100 batteries it should give us a pretty small idea on how people are going to react to them and if they are going to be worth making more. 

            Another important thing about production is materials used and components needed. With the situation we are in now, my group and I decided to maybe look into partnering. There are many companies that sell and make portable battery. Those are the companies which we would maybe want to make a collaboration with as we do not have the capital to make our own batteries. Eventually, if the “BAT” is doing amazing then we can try to talk to the military and see how many they would like to invest or buy our innovation. This portable battery can help many soldiers as they would not need to carry extra batteries for there equipment. This portable battery “BAT” would eventually do everything.

 Schedule

Task Number	Explanation of Task	Start Date	Amount of time spent (days)
1	Research for the portable battery and that features involved.	1-May	21
2	Create a design for the portable battery	22-May	14
3	Consult with engineers and technicians and make changes and apply for funding with military and school	5-Jun	14
4	Create a prototype	19-Jun	21
5	Test the prototype	2-Jul	14
6	Analyze test results and make any changes and test again	24-Jul	28
7	Finalize product and begin manufacturing to sell	28-Aug	21

            The total time that the BAT battery will take to be completed is around five months. There is a total of seven tasks that needs to be completed. In the Gantt chart task 4 and task 5 are overlapping each other. This is because testing is an important part as well as developing the prototype. The reason for this overlap is if there are any problems in the development of the prototype. Some amount of time can be taken from task 5 and the battery would still be on schedule to finish in approximately five months.

Materials 

Features:	Wireless Charging	Solar Panel	Portable Battery	Squeeze Panel	Extra Materials and Spare Battery
Components:	1.)Transmitter and Receiver Coil	Solar Panel	1.)Charging Module	Crank	1.)2 USB Type C Wires
	2.)Polyester Film 48in x 24in x 0.0007in, Case of 100		2.)Lithium Ion Battery	Gears	2.)PET Plastic Sheet 12in X 12in X 0.375in
	3.)Diode Rectifier(20 pieces)				3.) Lithium Ion Battery
	4.)Ceramic Output Capacitors (540 pieces)
	5.)Switching Regulator
Price:	1.)$23.50	$88	1.)$9.50	1.)$0	1.)$10
	2.)$642.86 and 1 sheet for $6.43		2.)$24.99	2.)$6.45	2.)$45.40
	3.)$6.45 and 1 for $0.32				3.)$24.99
	4.)$15.49 and 1 for $0.02
	5.)$26.94
Total Price for each feature:	$57.21	$88	$34.49	$6.45	$80.39

            The total price to make one BAT battery is around $266.54 including the option of the solar panel and the spare battery. Without the option of the solar panel, the total price is $178.54 and the option with BAT 1 and 2 without a solar panel will be $153.55. In order to manufacture one hundred BAT, portable batteries with the solar panel and spare battery will cost $26,654 and an additional $8,800 to produce one hundred solar panels. Also, the spare battery, BAT 2, would cost $2,499 to produce. These prices do not yet take into account the cost of labor and are just the price of the batteries using just the materials.   

Labor Power

Job	Amount of People	Price for one	Amount of time Working For	Total Price
Electrical Engineer	1	$6,000	4 months	$6,000
Engineering technicians	3	$5,000	4 months	$15,000
Lawyer	1	$7,000	4 months	$7,000
Mechanical Engineer	1	$6,000	4 months	$6,000

            For the construction of our proposed portable battery, BAT we will require different forms of labor. For the construction of our battery, we require the labor from an electrical engineer, engineering technicians, a lawyer, and a mechanical engineer. The electrical and mechanical engineers will oversee the construction and development of the battery while the engineering technicians will assist the engineers in the actual building of the battery. This project would also require the labor from a lawyer to make contracts with other companies and that we do not get involved in legal trouble in the construction of BAT.

Budget 

            The total costs for the construction of the BAT battery will come to a total of $60,654 with the inclusion of the labor power. The cost of the labor for the engineers, technicians and lawyer is $34,000, and the cost to produce 100 BAT batteries is $26,654. After calculating the average price needed, we will need a budget of $65,000. We would need an excess of about $5,000 in case something goes wrong with the construction and the project requires more expensive materials in order to be made.  

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