Reliable, Safe, Lithium-ion Battery Enabled by a Robust Battery Management System

Texas Research Institute Austin (TRI/Austin) teaming with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory proposes to develop a robust battery management system (BMS) based on technology that a) non-invasively maintains the internal states (SoC, Rint, Tint and Ecv) of each cell in the battery well within the safety limits at all times, b) establishes cell balancing and Ah-capacity monitoring, and c) uses external sensors to monitor the batterys ambient temperature, humidity, pressure, and arcing. Of these nine sensors, the four internal state sensors have been developed at APL over the past four years. The arc-fault-detector is also an APL-developed sensor used extensively in the US Navy surface ships and submarines. For the four external sensors (ambient temperature, humidity, pressure and cell balancing), COTS technology will be used. The BMS will be built and demonstrated in steps with the sensors for monitoring the internal states being integrated in the Phase I Base and three of the external sensors and Ah-Capacity will be integrated into the breadboard BMS in the Phase I Option. Cell balancing and arc fault detection will be integrated in the Phase II effort.