Information processing apparatus, method and system

An information processing apparatus comprising:

• a charging controller configured to switch charging current of a rechargeable battery being charged with first current to second current and perform charging with the second current during a first duration which is one continuous period of time;
• a first state estimator configured to
• calculate a first voltage of the rechargeable battery during the first duration,
• calculate a second voltage which is an average value between a voltage at a time before start of the first duration and a voltage at a time after end of the first duration,
• calculate a feature of the rechargeable battery based on a difference between the first voltage and the second voltage, and
• estimate a state of the rechargeable battery based on the feature;
• an estimation result evaluator configured to specify, based on a plurality of pieces of second charging data in each of which a charging amount and a voltage are related with each other for a plurality of states, second charging data corresponding to the estimated state;
• a data acquirer configured to acquire information indicating the initial state of the rechargeable battery;
• and
• a second state estimator configured to estimate an internal state of the rechargeable battery based on the information and the second charging data.

An information processing method, comprising:

• switching charging current of a rechargeable battery being charged with first current to second current and charging with the second current is performed during a first duration which is one continuous period of time;
• calculating a first voltage of the rechargeable battery during the first duration;
• calculating a second voltage which is an average value between a voltage at a time before start of the first duration and a voltage at a time after end of the first duration;
• calculating a feature of the rechargeable battery based on a difference between the first voltage and the second voltage;
• estimating a state of the rechargeable battery based on the feature of the rechargeable battery;
• specifying first charging data corresponding to the state estimated based on a plurality of pieces of first charging data in each of which a charging amount and a voltage are related with each other for a plurality of states;
• specifying a reference charging amount that is a charging amount corresponding to an evaluation target voltage in the specified first charging data;
• and
• estimating an evaluation target charging amount that is a charging amount of the rechargeable battery corresponding to the evaluation target voltage and estimating a state of the rechargeable battery based on a difference between the reference charging amount and the evaluation target charging amount.

An information processing method, comprising:

• switching charging current of a rechargeable battery being charged with first current to second current and charging with the second current is performed during a first duration which is one continuous period of time;
• calculating a first voltage of the rechargeable battery during the first duration;
• calculating a second voltage which is an average value between a voltage at a time before start of the first duration and a voltage at a time after end of the first duration;
• calculating a feature of the rechargeable battery based on a difference between the first voltage and the second voltage;
• estimating a state of the rechargeable battery based on the feature of the rechargeable battery:
• specifying second charging data corresponding to the estimated state based on a plurality of pieces of second charging data in each of which a charging amount and a voltage are related with each other for a plurality of states,
• acquiring information indicating the initial state of the rechargeable battery, and
• estimating the internal state of the rechargeable battery based on the information and the second charging data.