Wireless Emergency Lighting System (WELS) Battery Tester (WBT)

In the event of an emergency, the WELS guides passengers to safety with luminescent signs and directions. To power this system, a WELS Battery Unit (WBU) must always be on board, fully charged, and safely operable. Currently, the Combined Ganged Battery Tester is used to verify the functionality of WBUs, but there is an issue with parts obsolescence. To keep up with the growing demand for WBUs, the WELS Battery Tester (WBT) has been designed with safety, reliability and manufacturability in mind.

The project centers around the electrical design which utilizes a custom circuit to interface with the WBU. This allows for charging, discharging, measuring battery temperature, reading internal memory and setting the WBU to a safe charge level for storage and shipping. These tests are implemented in the firmware of the microcontroller, which serves as the link from hardware to software. The packaged software application for the WBT confirms connection with a system, sends commands for which test is to be run and processes the data. The mechanical enclosure is lightweight, easily portable and ensures the WBU can make a secure connection with the device.