An Advanced Battery Management System for Lithium Batteries

Lithium-based batteries promise excellent performance, although they require careful management to avoid personnel injury and equipment damage. Consequently, there is extreme interest in developing accurate Battery Management Systems (BMS) to take advantage of the positive attributes of lithium-based chemistries without sacrificing flexibility and safety. However, the lack of proper BMS standardization and inaccurate state estimation algorithms have hampered the widespread adoption of lithium chemistries in spite of their advantages. During Phase I we established the feasibility of our approach to overcome this problem. We demonstrated that (1) we can provide State of Charge estimation accuracy to within 2 to 3%; (2) we can utilize existing life cycle data from battery manufacturers to estimate State of Health and State of Life; (3) we have a workable concept for BMS firmware which can support these algorithms; and (4) we have established an outstanding teaming arrangement and implementation plan for Phase II and Phase III. During Phase II we will complete development and conduct field testing using typical lithium ion battery packs and U.S. Army combat vehicles with our commercialization partners. We project a TRL 6 by the end of Phase II.