Power Management

Power Management includes devices and subsystems that manage the power in a product or larger system. Power Management can relate to thermal management. This may be a mechanical system, using of heat sinks, thermal pads and fans for dissipating wasted energy in electronics devices. Ducting and piping systems associated with the movement of air or coolant fluids may also be elements of the subsystem. There may be electromechanical elements including fan control, hydraulic pumps for cooling fluids with associated temperature sensing and motor control systems. Many thermal solutions today utilize Peltier Assemblies for the active electronic cooling of devices.

Power Management can also be considered to be an electronic subsystem of some types. It can comprise of power distribution circuits and cables, voltage regulation to maintain a stable power supply reference. It may also relate to the way power supplies convert between different voltages and currents in a system, or even to the conversion between AC and DC power. Many applications require power control (for example motor speed controllers and light dimmers) and special signal switching, and filtering may be needed to implement this. This may include feedback into a control loop to respond to the changing physical characteristics of the system – for example, angular velocity on a motor shaft or temperature in an oven.

Power Management is critical in systems with batteries, including hybrid systems with battery and mains or another source of power like solar. The Power Management Subsystem has to ensure the battery is safe as some batteries can explode under certain temperature and load conditions. It also has to ensure that the charge and discharge cycling of rechargeable batteries is kept within their requirements. Batteries can have their life expectancy significantly reduced by not staying within the depth of discharge specification for the system or the charging profile for the battery technology employed. In many cases, systems behave differently as the battery power drops or if an alternative supply is selected. A system may have economy modes when battery power gets low, requiring charge level to be actively monitored.