Development of a Synergetic Battery Pack (SBP)

The electrical energy storage devices of hybrid elctric vehicles must be capable of being repeatedly and rapidly charged and discharged at widely varying rates while providing a high energy density/specific energy at high operating efficiencies. As a result, it appears likely that a combination of energy storage devices will be employed for such applications. With the widely varying needs of these subsystems and high performance needs of these applications a highly efficient management/control system such as the proposed synergetic battery pack (SBP) offers a number of significant advantages. This vastly superior system of management and control of operations down to the individual cell level provides enhanced life expectancy and capacity to batteries with large numbers of cells, allows the efficient generation of pure AC power for highly efficient high frequency induction motors, allows the effective mixing of capacitors and batteries of different chemistries, provides tremendous charging flexibility and exhibits good power factor characteristics. This SBIR Phase I Program will demonstrate the capabilities of this unique system and more thoroughly quantify the scope of the improvement when used with Lithium-ion cells.