Real time visibility of battery status

The Truck iQ smart battery dashboard enhances management of motive power battery fleets, as each truck driver can easily see and understand their battery’s condition and associated parameters from their seat, in real time. They can therefore react immediately to optimise performance and prevent damage, if required.

Orjan Eriksson, commercial application manager monitoring & solutions at EnerSys EMEA says: “This enables drivers to optimise their battery’s utilisation and power management, while avoiding the risk of damage or productivity loss due to incorrect usage.”

Battery data is measured by wireless sensors located on the truck battery, and collected by a compact, harness-mounted Wi-iQ3 battery monitoring device. The Wi-iQ battery monitoring device relays this information to the Truck iQ smart battery dashboard via Bluetooth BLE. This communication channel is established quickly and automatically on power-up, without need for driver intervention. This is especially important during battery changes, which can be performed without any additional setup overhead or delay. As the module starts up, the Truck iQ smart battery dashboard automatically recognises the battery’s ID.

Information delivered to the Truck iQ smart battery dashboard includes real time State of Charge (SoC), and alarms and alerts for the following battery parameters: temperature, electrolyte level, low SoC and cell unbalance.

The dashboard’s primary screen features a prominent graph showing SoC, remaining work time and battery temperature. Battery warnings relating to Go to Charge - accompanied by a buzzer – and high battery temperature, electrolyte level or unbalance are visible.

The Truck iQ smart battery dashboard is the latest addition to the EnerSys power management system. The system uses wireless IoT technology to automatically collect battery data from every fleet vehicle for analysis, facilitating presentation of actionable insights within easily-readable reports. As a result, managers are able to achieve a far deeper understanding of their overall battery fleet performance, and can act pre-emptively on impending failure warnings. Longer-term strategies can also be identified, allowing for improvement of charging routines, streamlining of maintenance procedures, tracking of energy use, and correct deployment of batteries. Poor operator behaviour can also be identified and corrected.

Matteo Todesco, senior marketing manager - motive power EMEA & marketing operations manager – EMEA commented that “With the launch of the Truck iQ smart battery dashboard, Enersys finally closes the circle of forklift power management and now offers a complete remote monitoring solution. This extends from the latest Wi-iQ3 battery monitoring device with its report suite, the E connect mobile app for data sharing, and the Xinx battery operations management system that allows remote control by cloud, to the Truck iQ smart battery dashboard that displays all battery data directly to truck operators.”