XIICLEEE - 12th Portuguese-Spanish Conference on Electrical Engineering XIICLEEE_1846

Lithium Modular Battery Bank for Electric Vehicles

Lus Marques1, Vernica Vasconcelos1, Paulo G. Pereirinha1,2,3, Joo P. Trovo1,2

1
IPC/ISEC, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, R. Pedro Nunes, P-3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
2
Institute for Systems and Computers Engineering at Coimbra (INESC-Coimbra), Portugal
3
APVE, Portuguese Electric Vehicle Association.
lmarques, veronica, ppereiri, jptrovao@isec.pt
Abstract - In electric vehicles, battery management is of electric motor, recovering energy from regenerative braking,
utmost importance. Since the batteries are the most expensive and or in the charging process, to ensure that they work within
limiting factor that prevents the massive deployment of EVs,
bounds in order to assure their longevity. The electronic
special care must be taken to ensure that the batteries pack
supply the maximum possible energy, guaranteeing also system responsible for this task, built around a low cost 8 bit
reliability and longevity of this critical element. In this article it is microcontroller, is presented is this article. It monitors a 4
presented a modular battery bank intended to be used in electric cells module (equivalent to a 12V battery) and shares all the
vehicles, that can be easily connected to the data and control relevant information with a Master node, using CAN network
network of the vehicle in order to share all battery relevant [3].
information, namely state of charge and critical values, like low
or excessive temperature or voltage. Equalization of individual The microcontroller Single Board Computer, network and
cells is mandatory with Lithium chemistry and in our module this protocol used in the battery bank is also described, including
is done by dissipative method, which is of simple implementation, the global Batteries Management System (BMS). First
robust and with acceptable energy loss. With this module energy prototypes implementation and tests are presented and the
banks of the desired nominal voltage and capacity (connecting article finishes with a conclusion part.
modules in series, parallel or series/parallel) can be built.
Applications could range from electric bicycles to full-sized
electric cars. The batteries in the bank are connected through a II. BATTERY BANK AND 12V MODULES
CAN bus network, where the communications and equalization
algorithms are implemented in a simple 8 bit microcontroller. A. Cells and Batteries
The cells and batteries used in electric vehicles can be of
I. INTRODUCTION diverse chemistry, being the most common the ones showed in
Fig. 1 and Table 1.
Electric vehicles (EV), hybrid or battery only, are
considered key elements to sustainable mobility [1]. In fact,
todays mobility is based on vehicles with Internal Combustion
Engine (ICE), that consume mainly a scarce source petrol -
with rising costs, supplied from politically and social instable
world countries. ICE vehicles contribute heavily to city
pollution (CO2, particles,) and the emission of pollutants is a
major contributor to the global warming effect and climate
changes occurring nowadays.
Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) have, locally, zero
emission of pollutants, and if electric energy is supplied by
renewable sources wind, photovoltaic or hydroelectric they
can be truly zero emission globally. Other advantages of
Fig. 1. Typical energy densities of different battery types [4]
electric vehicles are, among others, simplicity of motor
construction and drive train, higher reliability and no noise
Pb (Lead Acid/Gel) batteries suffer from low energy
emission. The main limitation of BEV is range. This restriction
density, high recharge time (greater than 8 to 10 hours for full
is directly related to the low value of specific energy of the
charge), but they are tolerant to overcharge voltage. The
batteries. On the other hand the ICE engine has a much lower
Peukert effect is noticeable in these kind of batteries, lowering
efficiency (somewhere between 20% to 30%) when compared
substantially the available energy when high currents are
to an electric motor (bigger than 90%) [2].
needed (which is true for electric vehicles). NiMH despite the
Since the batteries are the most expensive and limiting
good cycle life stated by manufactures (Table I), that value is
factor that prevents the massive deployment of BEV, special
usually for low discharge rates. The self discharge of 20-30%
care must be taken to ensure that the batteries pack supply the
per month is also an issue [5].
maximum possible energy guaranteeing reliability and
Lithium batteries have high energy density, long cycle life,
longevity of this critical element.
can supply large currents without loosing capacity (virtually no
The battery bank is constituted by series of cells (grouped
Peukert effect). As a matter of fact, the current trend in the
in modules) that must be continuously monitored voltage,
automobile industry clearly points to the utilization of Lithium
temperature and current when supplying current to the
batteries. On the other hand these are less tolerant to extreme
XIICLEEE - 12th Portuguese-Spanish Conference on Electrical Engineering XIICLEEE_1846

conditions, namely over or undervoltage limits. To cope with These Lithium cells have nominal voltage of 3.2V,
this, electronic system must be used to exercise tight control maximum charge voltage of 3.65V and cut off discharge
on voltage and cell temperature. voltage of 2.0V. They can be charged to 5C and the maximum
discharge current is 10C. They present very good cycle life of
TABLE I
2000 cycles with discharge rate of 1C and 80% depth of
Battery Types Available for Electric Vehicles [6] discharge (DOD). The energy density is 105Wh/kg and power
density 850 W/kg.
Property (Unit) Lead Acid NiMH Lithium

Cell Voltage (V) 2 1,2 3,2-3,6

B. 12V Module and Battery bank
Energy Density (Wh/Kg) 30-40 50-80 100-200
The battery bank can be composed of any number of 12V
Power Density (W/Kg) 100-200 100-500 500-8000 modules - 4 Lithium cells in series. The 12V Module is
Maximum Discharge Rate 6-10C 15C 100C showed in Fig. 4.
Useful Capacity (DOD %) 50 50-80 >80
Charging Efficiency (%) 60-80 70-90 ~100 CAN
Equal.
SBC2680
Self Discharge (%/Month) 3-4 30 2-3 Board

Cycle Life (Number of 600-900 >1000 >2000 -

Cycles)
+
Robust (Over/Under Voltage) Yes Yes Needs BMS
Fig. 4. LiFePO4 12V Module Battery
Technology Maturity Old Mature New
Price Low Medium Medium to The 12V module is composed of four LiFePO4 cells
High connected in series (with 12,8 V nominal voltage), a thermistor
attached to each cell to sense individual temperature and a
From Fig. 1, Table 1 and subsequent comments it should board with an 8-bit microcontroller - the Single Board
be evident that Lithium battery is nowadays the available Computer, SBC internally named SBC2680, view figure 4
technology that best fits the needs of electric vehicles. Among plus an equalization board. This SBC was designed and built
them, one of the variants of Lithium cells, the LiFePO4 by the authors and is used in other projects related to electric
(Lithium Iron Phosphate), has a good compromise between mobility, also running in our institution [8]. For the first
electrical characteristics and price [7]. Example of LiFePO4 version of equalization system a dissipative type was used.
cylindrical cells (from Headway) and discharge graph are The global battery bank schematic is depicted in figure 5.
showed in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3.
CAN Bus (Vehicle data and control network)
Modular Battery Bank

CAN
Master
SBC2680
node
CAN
CAN Bus (battery bank)

CAN CAN
Equal. Equal.
SBC2680 SBC2680
Fig. 2. Cylindrical LiFePo4 Cells from Headway Board Board

. . .
CS
12V Module - 1 12V Module - N

Fig. 5. Modular Battery Bank (with N 12V modules)

The battery bank network architecture follows the

Fig. 3. Discharge Profile of LiFePO4 cell
distributed paradigm, with all 12V modules connected using a
digital shared serial network, namely the Controller Area
Network (CAN), which is the most popular networking
technology used in the automotive domain, today. This
popularity is due to several features, namely:
high efficiency with short data transfers;
XIICLEEE - 12th Portuguese-Spanish Conference on Electrical Engineering
medium to high information data rate (up to 1Mbit/s);
robust error detection and automatic retransmission of
corrupted messages;
distinction between transient and permanent errors;
asynchronous medium access with priority arbitration;
low cost.
The CAN protocol is, however, rather simple, which is an
advantage but also a limitation. Therefore, there are several
higher layer protocols developed to work on top of CAN and
provide extra features as needed. One such protocol, which
was selected for use in our bank, is FTT-CAN (which stands
for Flexible Time Triggered communication over CAN [9].
III. SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER AND BATTERIES
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
The Single Board Computer - SBC2680 - is based in a
Microchip PIC18F2680 microcontroller [10]. This
microcontroller has very appealing characteristics to be used in
the 12V Battery Module, namely:
clock speed of 40 MHz;
internal memory of 64 kbytes;
24 digital I/O, that can be configured as input or
outputs;
10 bit ADC, with 10 multiplexed inputs;
integrated CAN controller;
serial UART;
SPI communication;
low cost.
The SBC2680 construction is modular, allowing easy
replication and adaptation to all subsystems, resulting in a
homogeneous network with simplified deployment and
management.
Fig. 6. SBC2680 module, based on Microchip 18F2680 microcontroller
In Lithium batteries the voltage of individual cells must be
monitored closely in order to not allow a voltage bigger than
maximum or lower then a minimum. If this is not assured,
irreversible damage will occur in the cell(s), rendering the
bank unusable, leading to full stop of vehicle and to big
maintenance costs.
Battery cells are never identical. Even batteries produced
in the same batch present always small differences in self-
discharge rate, capacity and impedance. Therefore,
XIICLEEE_1846
individual cells in a battery pack will show different
voltage levels after a full charge.
The management system must guarantee that individual
cells never pass a maximum value and do not go lower than
minimum voltage. In the charging process, if any cell reaches
the maximum value, the process must be stopped and one or
more cells in the pack are not fully charged. The obvious
consequence is that the battery pack full capacity is not
available for discharge (see Fig. 7). In the discharging process,
the available capacity cannot be fully used because the output
of battery must be cut if any of the cells reaches minimum
capacity (first cell in Fig. 7.b). Even worse, with charge-
discharge cycles cell capacities start to drift, leading to a
decrease in the battery available capacity [11].
a) b)
Fig. 7. Example of charge level imbalance in the four cells of the battery
pack: a) during charge; b) during discharge
To cope with the above stated problem the battery pack
needs to be balanced. So, to avoid damaging the cells due
to imbalance in the battery pack, cell equalization is used
to reduce the difference in voltage between the cells. This
gives cells longer lifetime and more available capacity [11]
[12].
The algorithm used in the charge process and to do cell
equalization was the following:
Charge and Equalization algorithm for 12V Module
Do 20 times per second, for each cell (i=0 to 3)
1. Measure cell voltage
2. if voltage(Cell[i]) > THRESH_HIGH then bypass
Cell[i] (turn ON parallel MOSFET[i])
3. if voltage (Cell[i]) > THRESH_OVER then send
ALARM message, in order to cutt-off charger.
Do each second
1. Measure all individual cell temperature
2. if temperature(Cell[i]) > THRESHOLD_TEMP
then send ALARM message (in order to cutt-off
charger).
The action 3 in the algorithm is performed by the Master
battery node and when done it sends a message to all 12V
modules in order to disconnect all the MOSFETS and bypass
resistors.
In the discharge process the SBC2680 is responsible for
monitoring individual cells voltage and to cut-off output of
module (by sending Alarm message to the Master) if any cell
voltage goes lower than a preset minimum value.
The module will also send a CAN alarm message to the
MASTER to inform if over temperature situation occurs.
XIICLEEE - 12th Portuguese-Spanish Conference on Electrical Engineering XIICLEEE_1846

IV. IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTS
In order to test the battery module, the algorithms to
determine the SOC and to equalize individual cells, batteries
from A123 were used, depicted in Fig. 3. These cells are a
scale down of the intended cells allowing carrying out the first
tests with the proposed system.
The Master SBC is also responsible for the State of Charge
(SOC) estimation. In the first prototype of the battery bank, the
SOC estimation was done using one of the various techniques
used in the literature, as for instance in [12]. We used
Coulomb counting plus heuristics with satisfactory results.

Fig. 8. Lithium cells used in testing of concept

To get the charge profile of cells several charge/discharge

cycles were done, being the values monitored with a PC
connected to the microcontroller trough the serial port. The
charge algorithm used constant current/constant voltage, as
recommended in the cells manual. Discharge was done using
resistive loads. In Fig. 4 the profile of charge and discharge of
cell number 1 of the 12V LiFePO4 module is shown.

Cell Voltage (V)

4

3,5
1C
Fig. 11. Experimental setup
3

V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

2,5
In this article it was presented a modular battery bank
intended to be used in electric vehicles, that connects the
2
0 600 1200 1800 2400 3000 3600 4200
various 12V modules through a CAN bus. The 12V modules
Time (s) are continuously monitored by SBCs, being these also
Fig. 9. Charge profile of tested cell n1 (1C) responsible for the equalization process of individual cells.
Using the Master Node and the CAN network, the battery bank
Cell Voltage shares the relevant information with the vehicle data and
4
control network. Several charge/discharge cycles were done in
order to test the proposed system. Future work involves the
3,5
design and implementation of more accurate SOC estimation
1C
algorithms. On the other hand, techniques to minimize losses
3 in equalization process [13][14][15] will be evaluated in terms
of price, effectiveness, energy conservation and complexity.
2,5
VI. REFERENCES
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0 600 1200 1800 2400 3000 3600 4200 Fuel Cell Electric vehicles key to sustainable mobility, [Online].
Time (s) Available: www.avere.org
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Edition, Boca Raton, CRC Press, August 2009.
From the experimental results it can be seen that the [3] Controller Area Network (CAN) specification version 2.0., Bosch
capacity of cell is 1000 mAh, as stated in the cell manual. GmbH, 1991.
The system used to test the charge and discharge and [4] Maxim Integrated Products, Inc, (2011, April 20). Electronic
Publication: Application Note 3958. [Online]. Available:
equalization algorithms is shown in Fig. 11. www.maxim-ic.com
The next step to test the module is to implement in the [5] J. Aditya and M. Ferdowsi, Comparison of NiMh and Li-ion Batteries
microcontroller the algorithm to control the module charge and in Automotive Applications, IEEE Conference on Vehicle Power and
the discharge limits. The implementation was done using C Propulsion Conference, 2008.
language.
XIICLEEE - 12th Portuguese-Spanish Conference on Electrical Engineering
[6] Axeon. Inc, (2011, April 22). Electronic Publication: Our Guide
Batteries. [Online]. Available: www.axeon.com
[7] W. Jiayuan, S.Zechang and W. Xuezhe, Performance and characteristic
research in LiFePO4 battery for electric vehicle applications, IEEE
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[8] P. Pereirinha, J. Trovo, L. Marques, J. Silvestre, F. Santos, A. Campos,
M. Silva and P. Tavares, The Electric Vehicle VEIL Project: A Modular
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[9] L. Almeida, P. Pedreiras, J.A. Fonseca, The FTT-CAN protocol: Why
and how, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 49 (6), 2002.
[10] Microchip Technology Inc, Electronic Publication:
PIC18F2585/2680/4585/4680 Data Sheet [Online]. Available:
www.microchip.com
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[11] J. Xu et al, Estimation of SOC for Lithium-ion Battery Pack in Electric
Vehicle, Int. Conf. Artificial Intelligence and Computational
Intelligence, Shanghai, China, November 07.
[12] J. Cao, N. Schofield and A. Emadi, Battery Balancing Methods: A
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[13] K. Cheng, B. Divakar. H. Wu, K.Ding and H. Ho, Battery
Management System (BMS) and SOC Development for Electrical
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[14] J. Cao and A. Emadi, Batteries Need Electronics, IEEE Industrial
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[15] R. Lu, C. Zhu, L. Tian and Q. Wang, Super-Capacitor Stacks
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