Modular, Scalable Battery Systems with Integrated Cell Balancing and DC Bus Power Processing

• Main Author: Muneeb Ur Rehman, Muhammad
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 2018
• Subjects: power converters; Lithium ion battery; cell balancing; DC bus; battery management; Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/6999; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8106&context=etd

Traditional electric vehicle and stationary battery systems use series-connected battery packs that employ centralized battery management and power processing architecture. Though, these systems meet the basic safety and power requirements with a simple hard- ware structure, the approach results in a battery pack that is energy and power limited by weak cells throughout life and most importantly at end-of-life. The applications of battery systems can benefit significantly from modular, scalable battery systems capable of advanced cell balancing, efficient power processing, and cost gains via reuse beyond first-use application. The design of modular battery systems has unique requirements for the power electronics designer, including architecture, design, modeling and control of power processing converters, and battery balancing methods. This dissertation considers the requirements imposed by electric vehicle and stationary applications and presents design and control of modular battery systems to overcome challenges associated with conventional systems. The modular battery system uses cell or substring-level power converters to combine battery balancing and power processing functionality and opens the door to new opportunities for advanced cell balancing methods. This approach enables balancing control to act on cell-level information, reroute power around weaker cells in a string of cells to optimally deploy the stored energy, and achieve performance gains throughout the life of the battery pack. With this approach, the integrated balancing power converters can achieve system cost and efficiency gains by replacing or eliminating some of the conventional components inside battery systems such as passive balancing circuits and high-voltage, high-power converters. In addition, when coupled with life prognostic based cell balancing control, the modular system can extend the lifetime of a battery pack by up to 40%. The modular architecture design and control concepts developed in this dissertation can be applied to designs of large battery packs and improve battery pack performance, lifetime, size, and cost.