System and method for monitoring and balancing voltage of individual battery cells within a battery pack
AssigneeA123 Systems, Inc.
InventorsPaul W. Firehammer, Brian C. Moorhead
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods for a scalable battery controller are disclosed. In one example, a circuit board coupled to a battery cell stack is designed to be configurable to monitor and balance battery cells of battery cell stacks that may vary depending on battery pack requirements. Further, the battery pack control module may configure software instructions in response to a voltage at a battery cell stack.
Claims20
A system for controlling monitoring and voltage balancing of individual battery cells within a battery pack supplying power to a vehicle, comprising:
- in a first configuration, a circuit board comprising a plurality of battery cell monitor circuits and voltage balance circuits, said plurality of battery cell monitor circuits and voltage balance circuits populated to monitor N actual total number of battery cells, where N is a number, the circuit board electrically coupled to a plurality of battery cells external to the circuit board;
- in a second configuration, the circuit board comprising the plurality of battery cell monitor circuits and voltage balance circuits populated to monitor less than N actual total number of battery cells, circuits included in the plurality of battery cell monitor circuits and voltage balance circuits not monitoring battery cells not being populated;
- and
- a controller including executable instructions stored in non-transitory memory to monitor and balance a first actual total number of battery circuits responsive to a first voltage across a voltage divider network and to monitor and balance a second actual total number of battery circuits responsive to a second voltage across the voltage divider network.
A system for controlling monitoring and voltage balancing of individual battery cells within a battery pack supplying power to a vehicle, comprising:
- a circuit board comprising a plurality of monitoring circuits and balancing circuits, the circuit board electrically coupled to a plurality of battery cells external to the circuit board;
- and
- a first and a second resistor included with the circuit board, said first and second resistors connected in series between a first reference and a second reference, said first resistor and said second resistor sized to produce a unique voltage representing an actual total number of populated monitoring circuits and voltage balancing circuits included in the circuit board.
A method for monitoring and voltage balancing a battery cell stack, said battery cell stack comprising a plurality of battery cells, an actual total number of said battery cells varying between different battery cell stacks, the method comprising:
- populating an actual total number of monitoring and voltage balancing circuits on a circuit board up to N monitoring and voltage balancing circuits, where N is a maximum number of battery cells arranged in series, said actual total number of monitoring and voltage balancing circuits varying between a first number of circuits and a second number of circuits, said circuit board electrically coupled to said plurality of battery cells external to said circuit board, and not populating at least one monitoring and voltage balancing circuit from said circuit board when less than N battery cells are monitored;
- populating a resistor network on said circuit board with resistors based on said actual total number of populated monitoring and voltage balancing circuits on said circuit board;
- and
- coupling a power supply in parallel with said plurality of battery cells, the power supply discharging the plurality of battery cells.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.