Development of a battery management system using microcontroller based monitoring module with redundant protection functionality

• Main Authors: Bueno, Nicole Katrina N., Ceron, Michael Angelo M., Padilla, Eloise Abigail T., Que, Shermaine C., Santos, Joshua Ray N.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Electric batteries; Storage batteries; Electric vehicles > Technological innovations; Electrical and Electronics; Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11371
• Institution: De La Salle University

Solar powered cars, like the Sinag, Sikat and Sikat II, need batteries to power up. These are not just simple batteries that people buy in the market. These batteries must be rechargeable, energy efficient and environment friendly, because the main of the organizations in developing solar cars is to encourage the world to resort to renewable sources of power and energy. The provide power to the solar car in which the solar panels are used to charge them. These batteries need to be monitored throughout the solar car operations to ensure safety and power optimization. With this, the conditions of such batteries are constantly managed for it to be maintained in the safe operating range of the battery. Thus, battery management systems are considered to be a vital part of any electric vehicle. Along with proper handling, such monitoring of the battery condition will also help in prolonging the life cycle of these batteries. This configurable Battery Management System (BMS) is designed to monitor lithium batteries. In the systems design, the master BMS controller reads the voltage and temperature of each battery module with a BMS slave connected via I²C communication. If the master BMS controller detects any abnormal condition, i.e. under- or ever-voltage, over-current and over-temperature, the whole system will automatically turn off through the cutoff circuit. All data and control use serial communications “ UART, I²C, and CAN. UART is used for the data acquisition of the BMS to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) wherein the systems cutoff limits are configurable, depending on the lithium battery used. I²C is used for the master-slave communication while CAN is used to transmit all data to the telemetry system of the solar car. The master BMS controller also manages all other subsystem such as the adaptive cooling system and the passive cell balancing. The Battery Protection System (BPS) is connected in parallel with the BMS slaves, also monitoring the voltage of the battery modules. And if these BMS encountered any failures, the BPS will active the cutoff circuit, thus stopping the entire systems operation.