A method and apparatus for monitoring the capacity of a valve regulated lead
acid
battery comprising at least one battery monitor connected to the valve regulated
lead acid battery; a centralized system connecting the battery monitor through
an industry standard data system to a central office; and an alarm connected to
the centralized system; wherein, a short-term discharge test is performed on the
battery using the battery monitor which provides input parameters for a neural
network and fuzzy logic network used in combination with a prediction algorithm
to calculate the predicted capacity; and, wherein, the alarm is activated when
said predicted capacity falls below eighty percent, when an individual cell voltage
is reduced to 1.95 volts or less, or when a system failure occurs
