LabVIEW Based Performance Assessment of Backup Emergency Power Supply for Critical Medical Equipment

Abstract

Introduction: In the recent past, the requirement of backup sources has increased exponentially and necessitated massive energy storage devices like lead-acid batteries, and supercapacitors. Materials and Methods: Especially these power backup resources become inevitable, while installing critical diagnostic and lifesaving equipment. The storage system, usually lead-acid battery bank, needs to be connected to the electrical appliances through a converter station where the energy conversion takes place. Such practices are involved in medical emergency appliances of uninterrupted power supply. The devices like monitoring instruments, patient’s artificial respiratory systems, light loads in operation theaters, motor loads and other electronic devices of laptop & desktop computers act as a source of harmonics. Apart from these, the sine wave / square wave inverter also introduces harmonics as well as micro ripples on the battery side. These micro frequency components have certain impacts on the storage system performance, efficiency, and utilization of electrical energy. Results and Conclusion: This work investigates the impact of micro frequency components on the lead-acid storage battery when it is operating with a sine wave inverter supplying Resistive load and RLE load. In order to perform the investigation, a hardware test bench was created. The results of laboratory tests on a lead-acid battery show that batteries lose capacity and the utilization gets reduced by the frequent use. This manuscript opens up a new direction of research in the medical emergency backup system operating with a 12V DC system.