- Brady Corporation has patented a solution that consists of a passive UHF RFID sensor tag in a battery, reader antennas in a warehouse and software to identify temperature changes.
- Seven companies so far are testing or deploying the system and some have been able to identify a temperature rise before a fire resulted.
Brady Corporation has released an RFID-based solution to help prevent over-heating or even fires from lithium-ion batteries in storage in warehouses and at production sites. The system tracks temperatures inside the batteries with a passive UHF RFID tag that not only detects a dangerous rise in temperature in real time but offers a view into trends taking place.
The company developed the solution to offer a relatively low-cost, automated way for companies that store lithium-ion batteries to detect temperature changes. While seven early-adopter companies in Western Europe have begun piloting or deploying the solution to track conditions in their own warehouse, Brady is now releasing the solution commercially.
The self-adhesive UHF RFID-embedded labels can be applied inside battery cell boxes for fast temperature change detection. Alternatively, every battery cell can be labelled with Brady’s on-metal, printable UHF RFID labels, said Harish Pingali, the company’s global product senior manager.
Inherent Fire Hazard
Accidents have happened worldwide. This past June, a lithium battery factory warehouse fire took the lives of 22 people in South Korea. And a battery in storage recently sparked a massive fire in Midtown Manhattan at an e-bike rental store.
The safety risk could increase with the prevalence of the electric vehicles and devices that rely on the battery cells. According to Statista Research, global demand for the batteries that power electric vehicles will increase seven-fold from the 2022 demand to 2030.
Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable and produced mostly for automotive use—electric bikes, cars, vans and buses. Once the battery is onboard a vehicle, the vehicle’s own sensor system is designed to track temperature conditions. However, before the batteries are installed, those producing or transporting them must actively track conditions.
Most companies track these conditional manually with staff members carrying infrared devices to detect condition changes, often every hour. Automated sensor temperature systems that use their own battery or electric power source can be highly expensive.
“It’s most definitely a safety concern that all the battery manufacturers are very concerned with and there are existing methods in place but they’re very manual or very expensive,” said Dennis Yost, Brady’s smart ID solutions senior manager.
Offering an Alternative
“The solution that we are introducing is more passive,” Pingali added, as it eliminates the need for battery-based sensors. The Brady solution is intended to offer a lower price point overall solution with less manual intervention.
With Brady’s solution, each tag is encoded with a unique ID that links to the battery it is attached to. It can also be applied outside the battery to its packaging. The FR22 Fixed UHF RFID reader comes with a 16-port multiplexer to limit the number of readers required at a site. A single reader, Pingali said, can manage a storage area of about 12 meters by four meters in height. Each antenna can interrogate two to three batteries depending on the size of the battery.
Every second the reader antennas interrogate the tag and each uses the power from that interrogation to capture and send the temperature reading. The temperature accuracy is typically within 0.5 degrees Celsius accuracy.
The software stores the latest temperature reading with the tag ID and approximate location. The acceptable temperature threshold can be configured according to the needs of the user. When a threshold is reached, the software triggers an alert to be sent.
Automated Warehouses
In the case of an automated warehouse, the software can send alerts to smartphones, tablets, illuminate warning lights, or trigger other devices to respond.
In the meantime, the patterns in temperature are recorded and tracked so that management can observe trends, said Pingali.
As a rise in temperature is detected by a tag, an alert can be sent to users of the system that indicate the tag that detected that rise, as well as its location in the warehouse. Workers who receive the alert can determine whether it needs to be addressed. If so, they can use a handheld RFID reader to locate the tag and then identify the actual problematic battery.
Keeping Costs Down
The use of a 16-port reader keeps down the hardware costs, Pingali said. And the software not only sends alerts, but tracks changing conditions.
Those in warehouse operations are concerned about the temperature trend as much as real-time changes, “so if there is a continuous increase in temperature, then that’s when it is concerning,” Yost added.
Those who had deployed the technology early have found that it may reduce their insurance premiums as some insurance providers have considered offering incentives.
Using the Technology in Other Parts of the Supply Chain
There are other purposes in the long term, as well. For instance, an e-bike battery manufacturer has expressed an interest in tracking batteries even after they are in use by leasing organizations.
Additionally, legislation such as the EU’s Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements for full supply chain traceability offer another application for the technology. If the data could be read at a recycling center, the battery could be identified as it is recycled, helping meet the 2027 traceability requirement for automotive batteries.
“The main initial focus that we’re bringing this towards is actually battery manufacturers for tracking the safety of the batteries in warehouses and in production areas,” said Pingali. “But the technology could also apply for cold chain monitoring related to fresh foods or medications.”
Pilots Transition to Deployments
Of the initial technology pilots, three of the customers have transitioned to full installations. One of those end-users operates a fully automated warehouse that handles about 100,000 batteries with robotic arms. They have installed a combination of fixed readers around the warehouse, and handheld readers are attached to the robotic arms, to identify when each battery or cell is picked up, and what its temperature is.
The number one value the technology offers is fire prevention, said Pingali, as well as labor cost reduction and operational savings, by detecting problems before the interrupt operations.
“It helps them to understand or catch [a problem] quickly and then act upon it rather than just wait for it to become a bigger concern for the full operations,” he said.