Patent ID: 6928371

Claim:
A method of monitoring the capacity of a valve regulated lead acid battery, comprising: connecting at least one battery monitor to said valve regulated lead acid battery; connecting said monitor to a centralized system through an industry standard data system that collects and transfers data from the field to a central office; providing said centralized system with an alarm; performing a short-term discharge test on said battery using said battery monitor; and obtaining a predicted capacity using a neural network and fuzzy logic network in combination with a prediction algorithm; training said neural network for a specific battery type in a lab by determining the actual capacity of a battery, inputting parameters with the actual capacity used as a target, and programming the set of coefficients yielded by said neural network in said battery monitor; wherein, said discharge test provides input parameters for said networks which in combination with said prediction algorithm calculate said predicted capacity, and wherein, said alarm is activated when said predicted capacity falls below a predetermined percentage, when an individual cell voltage is reduced to about 1.95 volts or less, or when a system failure occurs.