2720 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO.

6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

A Battery Management System Using an Active

Charge Equalization Technique Based on a
DC/DC Converter Topology
Sriram Yarlagadda, Tom T. Hartley, Member, IEEE, and Iqbal Husain, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—An active charge equalization technique based on a

dc/dc converter topology is proposed in this paper. The technique
achieves cell balancing of batteries in a stack in terms of both
voltage and charge as the pack is being charged/discharged and
in idle periods to maximize the energy and reliability of stack
operation. A set of MOSFET switches controlled by a voltage
monitoring circuit ensures that each battery module has the same
output voltage by transferring charge from an individual battery
module with the highest voltage to a weak module. An overvoltage
and overdischarge protection circuit is presented to reduce the
degradation of battery life and to operate each battery within the
voltage limits.
Index Terms—Battery, battery protection, cell balancing,
charge equalization, management system.

Fig. 1. Proposed BMS architecture.

I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE transportation sector is in search of a suitable alter-
native to fossil fuels as the portable energy store. The
efficient utilization, storage, and management of energy are
extremely important to minimize the energy demand. The most
common portable storage commodity available in the market
that can readily supply electrical energy is an electrochemical
battery. Series strings of batteries are used in portable electrical
appliances, electric vehicles, space vehicles, telephone industry,
power system industries, and military applications to store
energy. Each individual battery has slightly different capacity
due to manufacturing tolerances, aging, and environmental con-
ditions. After several charge/discharge cycles, the battery cells
or modules tend to go out of balance in the form of unequal volt-
ages along the string. The imbalance tends to grow with time
when some batteries charge/discharge at a faster rate and others
charge/discharge at a slower rate. Battery stack implementa-
Manuscript received June 6, 2012; revised October 1, 2012; accepted
January 25, 2013. Date of publication May 23, 2013; date of current ver-
sion November 18, 2013. Paper 2012-TSC-358.R1, presented at the 2011
IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, Phoenix, AZ, USA,
September 17–22, and approved for publication in the IEEE T RANSACTIONS
ON I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS by the Transportation Systems Committee of
the IEEE Industry Applications Society.
S. Yarlagadda is with Delphi Electronics & Safety, Auburn Hills, MI 48326
USA (e-mail: sriram.yarlagadda2@gmail.com).
T. T. Hartley is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-3904 USA (e-mail:
thartley@uakron.edu).
I. Husain is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7571 USA (e-mail:
ihusain2@ncsu.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2013.2264794
0093-9994 © 2013 IEEE
tion in electrical/electronic applications require a sophisticated
battery management system that is capable of providing the
following features:
• improved battery life;
• energy for longer time between recharging;
• reduced damaged rates;
• maximized capacity, efficiency, and reliability during stack
operation.
The block diagram for the proposed battery management
system (BMS) is shown in Fig. 1. Throughout the context of
this paper, a battery/cell with lower state-of-charge (SOC) is
considered as a weak battery/cell, and a battery/cell with higher
SOC is considered as a strong battery/cell. As shown in Fig. 1,
the voltage sensors sense the voltage across its respective bat-
tery and pass the information to a master microcontroller upon
request. A master microcontroller identifies the strong/weak
battery in the stack and sends the control signals to the charge
equalization modules (CEMs) of the strong and weak batteries
in the stack. The CEM of a strong and a weak battery turns
on the switching circuitry so as to transfer the energy from
the strong battery to an energy storage element and from the
energy storage element to the weak battery via the dc bus. The
master controller also sends the sensed data to an external PC
through a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter interface.
The protection circuitry for each individual battery manages
the overvoltage/undervoltage protection of each battery using
analog control circuits. The function of the external PC is to
acquire battery voltage data and to have a master control over
the entire BMS. The master control represents the generation
of external control signals from the keyboard to start/stop the
charge equalization process.

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YARLAGADDA et al.: ACTIVE CHARGE EQUALIZATION TECHNIQUE BASED ON A DC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
The contents of this paper are organized as follows:
The existing charge equalization schemes are described in
Section II. The hardware design and implementation of the
proposed scheme is described in Section III. The simulation
and experimental results are presented in Sections IV and V.
The advantages of the proposed scheme compared with the
previously proposed schemes are presented in Section VI,
followed by conclusions in Section VII.
II. P REVIUOUSLY P ROPOSED S CHEMES
A BMS uses a charge equalization strategy to balance the
series-connected individual cell voltages and SOC. A charge
equalization strategy refers to a hardware topology that is em-
ployed to achieve the required cell balancing in terms of SOC
and voltage. A BMS employs an individual microcontroller or
a master microcontroller controlling all local microcontrollers,
to control the switching circuitry. Based on the design of
switching circuitry, several charge equalization techniques are
proposed. These are:
• passive charge equalization, and
• active charge equalization.
A passive charge equalization technique is also known as a
dissipative charge equalization technique because a dissipative
element connected as a shunt is used to bypass or drain extra
energy from a cell. In a resistive shunt equalization technique
[1], [2], the resistors connected as a shunt element across each
cell should be of the same value. Therefore, a strong cell
dissipates more power across the resistor than a weak cell, and
the cells get balanced with time. In an analog shunt equalization
technique [3], a transistor is used as a shunt element, and the
breakdown voltage of a Zener diode acts as a reference voltage
for each cell, which is the voltage level where the bypass circuit
turns on. A voltage comparator circuit can be used to switch the
transistor.
An active charge equalization technique is also called
a nondissipative charge equalization technique because this
method utilizes the active or nondissipative elements to transfer
the energy from one cell to another. In a switched-capacitor
method [1]–[5], a capacitor is frequently switched between the
neighboring cells. If there is a difference in voltage between
the two neighboring cells, then charge transfer takes place from
the strong cell to the weak cell with the help of a common
capacitor between them. The disadvantages with this method
are that the cells in a stack are equalized with their neighbors
but not with respect to reference voltage, and the time taken to
equalize is long. A switched-reactor equalization technique [3]
method is the same as the switched-capacitor technique, except
that the former uses a reactor instead of a capacitor for charge
equalization. In a resonant equalization technique [2], [6], a
resonant circuit composed of L and C components in parallel is
used to achieve charge equalization by transferring the energy
between neighboring cells. A common bus connected to all the
dc/dc converters as in [1] is useful for energy transfer from
a strong cell at any position in the stack to a weak cell at
any position. A dc/dc converter block monitors the individual
cell voltages and compares with a reference voltage during
charging. When a cell voltage reaches its reference, the cell
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2721
Fig. 2. Bidirectional charge transfer between two batteries.
is bypassed, and energy is transferred to the main bus via the
dc/dc converter. From the main bus, the energy bypassed is
directed to a weak cell in the stack. During discharging, the
energy is transferred from a strong cell to a weak cell through
the main bus using bidirectional dc/dc converters. Kutkut and
Divan in [1] and Kutkut et al. in [7] presented three different
multiwinding transformer methods for charge equalization.
III. H ARDWARE D ESIGN AND I MPLEMENTATION
A. Charge Equalization Circuit Design
A BMS using an active charge equalization technique is
developed by considering an application requiring a minimum
of three lead–acid batteries in series. A modified circuit of a
buck–boost converter, as shown in Fig. 2, works as the charge
transfer element between two batteries.
In Fig. 2, the inductor represents the energy storage ele-
ment as stated in the proposed architecture. For transfer of
energy from Battery1 to Battery2 , MOSFETs M1 and M2
are turned on first to transfer energy from Battery1 to the
inductor. The energy stored in the inductor is transferred to
Battery2 when MOSFETs M1 and M2 are turned off. Diodes
D3 and D4 act as freewheeling diodes and are forward biased
to allow the continuous conduction of inductor current, thereby
allowing Battery2 to charge. Similarly, for energy transfer
from Battery2 to Battery1 , M3 and M4 are turned on first
to discharge Battery2 , and when M3 and M4 are turned off,
diodes D1 and D2 are forward biased to charge Battery1 .
The circuit in Fig. 2 increases the complexity of implemen-
tation with an increase in the number of batteries in a stack.
To overcome this problem, a modified circuit is proposed as
in Fig. 3(a). Each CEM placed on the battery has the charge
equalization circuit shown in Fig. 3(a). The charge equalization
circuit has four MOSFETs connected to the inductor through
the dc BUS +ve and dc BUS −ve. The switching of these
MOSFETs decides the condition of charging/discharging in the
battery.
Fig. 3(b) and (c) shows the direction of current flow for
energy transfer from the battery to the inductor, and vice versa.
Fig. 3(b) shows the circuit operation for the Battery with
the highest SOC in a stack; in this case, MOSFETs M1 and
M3 are turned on to transfer energy from the Battery to the
inductor. Similarly, Fig. 3(c) shows the circuit operation for
the Battery with the lowest SOC in the stack; in this case,
MOSFETs M2 and M4 are turned on to transfer the stored
energy in the inductor to the Battery. Therefore, the Battery
with the highest SOC in a stack discharges, and the Battery
with the lowest SOC charges until equalization of the batteries
is achieved. The control signals from the master microcontroller
2722 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

Fig. 3. (a) Charge equalization circuit in a CEM placed on a battery.

(b) Discharging a battery with CEM. (c) Charging a battery with CEM.

to the CEMs for switching of the MOSFETs are responsible for

the direction of energy transfer. The switching of the MOSFETs
decides the charging/discharging of a specific Battery.
Fig. 4(a) shows the circuit of the BMS implemented with the
active charge equalization technique for four batteries. In the
stack of batteries shown in Fig. 4(a), if Battery1 is considered
as the strong battery and Battery4 is considered as the weak
battery, then charge transfer takes place as follows.
• MOSFETs M1 and M9 are turned on to store the energy
in the inductor from Battery1 .
• MOSFETs M1 and M9 are turned off and MOSFETs M5
and M7 are turned on to transfer the stored energy from
the inductor to Battery4 .
During charge equalization for the stack of batteries, ad-
ditional diodes are connected in series with the MOSFETs
when several cells are connected in series. The series diodes
in Fig. 4(a) prevent the charging of all batteries except the
weakest battery in the stack via leakage current flowing through
the freewheeling diodes across MOSFETs. The timing diagram
represented in Fig. 4(b) explains the switching signals from the
microcontroller representing charge transfer between Battery1 Fig. 4. (a) Charge equalization circuit implemented on four batteries. (b) Tim-
and Battery4 . The time periods have the following signifi- ing diagram representing energy transfer from Battery1 to Battery4 during
the idle scenario. (c) Charge equalization energy transfer from Battery1 to
cance: During t1 , Battery1 is discharged; during t2 , Battery4 Battery4 during charging/discharging.
is charged; and during t3 , both Battery1 and Battery4 have
equalized charge. It has been assumed that the batteries will get during charging/discharging of the battery stack is explained
equalized in one cycle of energy transfer. in Fig. 4(c). In the figure, SW represents a single-pole
The energy transfer path between the highest SOC battery, double-throw switch, which can be connected either to the
i.e., Battery1 , to the lowest SOC battery, i.e., Battery4 , charging or to the discharging scenario when required. Icharg

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YARLAGADDA et al.: ACTIVE CHARGE EQUALIZATION TECHNIQUE BASED ON A DC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY 2723

represents the charging current during charging, Idisch repre-

sents the discharging current during discharging across a load,
and Ieq represents the charge equalization current that remains
the same during charging, discharging, and idle cases of stack
equalization. As previously mentioned for charge equalization
during the idle scenario, the MOSFETs’ turn on/off logic
prevails for charge equalization during charging or discharging
of the battery stack.
For charge equalization of the stack during charging,
MOSFETs M1 and M9 in Fig. 4(c) are turned on to store
energy in the inductor. The charging current flowing through
Battery1 is Icharg − Ieq . MOSFETs M5 and M7 are turned on
to transfer the stored energy from the inductor to Battery4 . The
current flowing through Battery4 is Icharg + Ieq . Similarly, for
charge equalization of the stack during discharging, MOSFETs
M1 and M9 are turned on to store energy in the inductor. The
discharging current flowing through Battery1 is Idisch + Ieq .
MOSFETs M5 and M7 are turned on to transfer the stored
energy from the inductor to Battery4 . The current flowing
through Battery4 is Idisch − Ieq . The charge equalization cur-
rent is related to the inductor size as follows:

V = 2 × L × Ieq × f (1)

where f is the desired frequency of operation, and V is the

battery nominal voltage. The inductor size is determined using
(1) based on the desired equalization current level Ieq . The
calculated value of the inductor in the setup described in this
paper is 40 μH for the four batteries in the pack according to
(1), but a higher value has been used in the experiments.

B. Overvoltage and Overdischarge Protection Circuit

The successful operation of a battery in a stack where reli-
ability of batteries is of major concern requires the continuous
monitoring of voltage across a battery for it to operate within
the safe voltage limits. A controller or an analog reference
circuit can monitor the voltages across batteries. Fig. 5(a)
represents the overvoltage and undervoltage protection circuit
used across a battery.
In Fig. 5(a), MA , MB , and MC are the MOSFET–diode
combination switches used for each Battery, and G1 and G2
are the control signals generated to switch the MOSFETs. The
operation of the overvoltage and undervoltage protection circuit
is explained in the following sections.
1) Operation of Overvoltage Protection Circuit: An over- Fig. 5. (a) Overvoltage and undervoltage protection circuit for a battery.
charge of a battery beyond its safe maximum voltage limit (b) Circuit operation of overvoltage protection circuit. (c) Circuit operation of
overdischarge protection circuit.
results in gassing, loss of electrolyte, and grid corrosion on
the positive plate that leads to reduction in battery life. The plays a major role in current bypassing. The value of resistor
operation of the overvoltage protection circuit is graphically R should be chosen so as to bypass the entire charging current,
shown in Fig. 5(b). allowing only a partial amount of current through the battery for
A threshold voltage limit obtained from the battery charac- compensating the self-discharge. Power dissipation across the
teristics is considered as the upper limit of voltage, beyond resistor also plays a major role in its selection because proper
which the battery should not be charged. The threshold voltage precautions are to be taken to dissipate the entire heat developed
is considered as the reference voltage for the monitoring circuit. that can affect the characteristics of a battery.
As soon as the voltage measured across the battery reaches the 2) Operation of Overdischarge Protection Circuit: An un-
threshold voltage, gate control signal G1 is generated to turn on dervoltage protection circuit prevents the sulfation of battery
the MOSFET in MA . The MOSFET in MB is not conducting, plates, preventing the reduction in the capacity of a battery. In a
but the diode is forward biased. Resistor R in the bypass circuit system working with a stack of batteries, damage in any one

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2724 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 6. Control circuit for the overvoltage and overdischarge protection
circuit.
of the batteries in a stack leads to the stalling of the entire
system. Therefore, the damaged battery should be bypassed
to increase the reliability of the battery stack, and an under-
voltage protection circuit can serve the purpose. The operation
of an undervoltage protection circuit is graphically shown in
Fig. 5(c). A lower limit of voltage obtained from the battery
characteristics is to be considered as the reference voltage for
the monitoring circuit where the battery should be bypassed.
When the voltage across the battery is measured to be the same
as the undervoltage reference, gate control signal G2 is gener-
ated such that the MOSFET in MC turns off and the MOSFET
in MB turns on. The diode in MA is forward biased, allowing
the current to be bypassed. The battery is alienated from the
stack and prevented from further discharging. The battery stack
can thus be kept functional and capable of supplying the load.
The option to disconnect the overdischarged battery from the
power path is done by adding a MOSFET in the power path.
The MOSFET added in series with the power path will have
an impact on efficiency that can be minimized by using a low
on-state resistance MOSFET.
The overvoltage/overdischarge protection circuitry helps to
maintain the battery voltage operation within limits during
charging/discharging, whereas active charge equalization of the
battery is responsible for charge equalization among cells. The
overvoltage circuitry is employed to accommodate the char-
acteristic differences of the batteries in a stack and to protect
cells if the pack charging current is greater than the charge
equalization current. The overdischarge protection circuitry
allows the continuation of stack operation in case of failure
of any of the batteries in the stack. The analog loop control
reduces the software complexity of handling both the charge
equalization strategy and battery voltage maintenance tasks.
Moreover, analog loop control provides faster control over
digital control to switch from the regular mode to overvoltage/
overdischarge load, and vice versa. The fast analog control is
used to provide redundant safeguard in case the digital control
becomes compromised.
C. Control Circuit for Overvoltage and
Undervoltage Protection
The control circuit used to generate the control signals for
switching the MOSFETs in MA , MB , and MC is shown in
Fig. 6 [8], [9].
An analog control circuit is used to avoid the continuous
monitoring of the voltage using a microcontroller. Two indi-
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TABLE I
I NITIAL SOC OF THE BATTERY PACKS U SED IN S IMULATIONS
vidual control units are used for the overvoltage protection
and undervoltage protection of the battery. The control circuit
shown in Fig. 6 senses the voltage across a battery using
the resistor divider network. The sensed voltage is fed into a
voltage reference comparator. Resistor R is varied such that
when the battery reaches the threshold voltage limit during
overvoltage protection, a voltage of 2.5 V is observed across
the REF pin of the comparator. The voltage at the REF pin
is compared with a built-in reference of 2.5 V and turns on
the p-n-p transistor. This comparator output generates gate
signal G1 for overvoltage protection and allows current by-
passing of the battery. Overvoltage protection is active until
the battery voltage is below the lower threshold voltage limit.
Similarly, during the undervoltage scenario, a voltage of 2.5 V
is observed on the comparator when the battery reaches the
lower operational limit. While the protection is active, a voltage
of 2.5 V is observed across the REF pin of the comparator,
and the transistor continues to generate control signal G2 . If
control signal G2 is high, then the MOSFET in MC remains on,
and the MOSFET in MB remains off. When the voltage across
the battery falls below the lower threshold voltage, control
signal G2 becomes low and turns off the MOSFET in MC and
turns on the MOSFET in MB . The MOSFETs in MB and MC
have complementary turn-on and turn-off periods with the same
control signal because the MOSFET in MC is an n-channel type
and the MOSFET in MB is a p-channel type.
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The battery model used for simulation is a lumped parameter
model [10]. A simulation model is developed for the proposed
active charge equalization topology using MATLAB/Simulink
software to demonstrate an increase in the capacity of the
battery stack when implemented with a BMS. The charge
equalization circuit in Fig. 4 has been incorporated for a stack
of 50 batteries in the simulations using a single-inductor con-
figuration. Some of the considerations made while developing
the simulation model are as follows.
• The stack of 50 batteries serves as the energy storage and
power-generating unit for the electric vehicle model driven
on either Highway Fuel Economy Test (HWFET) or Urban
Dynamometer Drive Schedule (UDDS) drive schedules.
• The 50 batteries are subdivided into groups, each consist-
ing of five batteries. An equivalent model of five Trojan
T-125 batteries in series is used in the simulations.
• The average current flowing through the inductor is as-
sumed to be 50 A during charge transfer from the strong
battery to the weak battery in a stack.
Table I gives the initial SOC for the group of batteries used
in the simulation.
Fig. 7(a) presents the SOC of the individual batteries in the
pack employed in the electric vehicle driven on the UDDS drive
cycle under the supervision of the BMS. Fig. 7(b) presents
YARLAGADDA et al.: ACTIVE CHARGE EQUALIZATION TECHNIQUE BASED ON A DC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
Fig. 7. (a) SOC of batteries with a BMS in the UDDS drive cycle. (b) SOC of
the batteries without a BMS in the UDDS drive cycle.
the SOC of the individual batteries in the pack employed in
the electric vehicle driven with the UDDS drive cycle without
a BMS.
In Fig. 7(b), it is shown that an individual battery with an
SOC of 63.22% is present in the battery pack, which will
limit the discharge of the stack during the UDDS drive cycle.
Fig. 7(a) shows that all the batteries are equalized, and the
individual battery with the lowest SOC has an SOC of 78.3%.
From the SOC of the weak battery in Fig. 7(a) and (b), it is clear
that there is an increase in the capacity of the battery pack with
a BMS in an electric vehicle. If a passive charge equalization
technique is applied to the battery stack during the UDDS drive
cycle, then the extra energy in the battery stack other than the
weakest battery will be drained across the passive elements,
which will bring down the SOC of all batteries to 63.22%. On
the other hand, the active charge equalization technique takes
the SOC of the battery stack to 78.3%. The vehicle with a
battery pack that has the BMS can operate much longer than
the battery pack employed without a BMS with the UDDS drive
cycle.
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2725
Fig. 8. (a) SOC of batteries with a BMS in the HWFET drive cycle. (b) SOC
of the batteries without a BMS in the HWFET drive cycle.
Fig. 8(a) gives the SOC of individual batteries in the pack
employed in the electric vehicle driven on the HWFET drive
cycle under the supervision of the BMS. Fig. 8(b) gives the SOC
of the individual batteries in the pack employed in the electric
vehicle driven with the HWFET drive cycle without a BMS.
In Fig. 8(b), it is shown that an individual battery with an
SOC of 59.74% is present in the battery pack, which will limit
the discharge of the stack during the HWFET drive cycle. On
the other hand, it is shown in Fig. 8(a) that all the batteries
are equalized, and the SOC of each battery is at 75%. If a
passive charge equalization technique is applied to the battery
stack during the HWFET drive cycle, then the extra energy
in the battery stack in all batteries except the weakest battery
will be drained across the passive elements, and the SOC of
all the batteries will be brought down to 59.74%. The active
charge equalization technique helps increase the SOC of the
battery stack to 75%. From the SOC of the individual batteries
in Fig. 8(a) and (b), it is clear that there is an increase in the
capacity of the battery pack with a BMS in an electric vehicle,
which enables it to travel for a longer distance than the battery
pack employed without a BMS during the HWFET drive cycle.
2726 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 9. (a) Charge equalization of four lead–acid batteries during the idle
period. (b) Charging and discharging of the inductor during the idle-period
charge equalization experiment. Channel 1: inductor current (scale: 0.1 V/A,
i.e., 0.5 V/div). Channel 2: inductor voltage (scale: 5 V/div).
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
The proposed BMS is implemented on a stack of Trojan
T-125 lead–acid batteries. A Trojan T-125 lead–acid battery is
a 225-Ah 6-V deep cycle rechargeable battery. This section
presents the results for charge equalization during charging
and discharging and during the idle period of the stack. The
results demonstrating the operation of the overvoltage and
undervoltage protection circuits are also presented.
Fig. 9(a) presents the results for charge equalization of four
lead–acid batteries during an idle period with initial voltages of
Battery1 = 5.93 V, Battery2 = 6.12 V, Battery3 = 5.98 V,
and Battery4 = 6.06 V. Fig. 9(b) presents the oscilloscope
stored waveform for the charge transfer from the strong battery
to the weak battery in a stack through charging and discharging
of an inductor during the idle period.
Fig. 10(a) gives the results for charge equalization of three
lead–acid batteries during charging with a constant current of
1 A and batteries with initial voltages of Battery1 = 6.00 V,
Battery2 = 5.96 V, and Battery3 = 6.085 V. Fig. 10(b)
presents the oscilloscope stored waveform for the charge trans-
fer from the strong battery to the weak battery in a stack through
charging and discharging of the inductor during charging.
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Fig. 10. (a) Charge equalization of three lead–acid batteries during charging.
(b) Charging and discharging of the inductor during the charge equalization
experiment with 1-A charging. Channel 1: inductor current (scale: 0.1 V/A,
i.e., 0.5 V/div). Channel 2: inductor voltage (scale: 5 V/div).
Fig. 11(a) presents the results for charge equalization of
three lead–acid batteries during discharging with a load of
8 Ω across the stack and batteries with initial voltages
of Battery1 = 5.93 V, Battery2 = 6.10 V, and Battery3 =
6.07 V. Fig. 11(b) presents the oscilloscope stored waveform
for the charge transfer from the strong battery to the weak
battery in a stack through charging and discharging of the
inductor during discharging. The end of the test is indicated by
abrupt changes in voltages in Figs. 9(a), 10(a), and 11(a).
Table II gives the time required for charge equalization in
different scenarios.
Fig. 12(a) presents the results for overvoltage protection
of four batteries with initial voltages of Battery1 = 6.01 V,
Battery2 = 5.95 V, Battery3 = 6.05 V, and Battery4 =
6.03 V. The batteries are charged with a constant current of
2.5 A and have a bypassing resistor of 2.8 Ω. The upper voltage
reference limit is 6.75 V.
Fig. 12(b) presents the waveforms for the bypass current
through the 2.8-Ω resistor (channel 2) and the charging current
with the same reference during charging of the battery stack
with 2.5 A of current (channel 3). Fig. 12(b) shows that if the
YARLAGADDA et al.: ACTIVE CHARGE EQUALIZATION TECHNIQUE BASED ON A DC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
Fig. 11. (a) Charge equalization of three lead–acid batteries during discharg-
ing. (b) Charging and discharging of the inductor during the charge equalization
experiment with 8-Ω load. Channel 1: inductor current (scale: 0.1 V/A, i.e.,
0.5 V/div). Channel 2: inductor voltage (scale: 5 V/div).
TABLE II
E QUALIZATION T IME IN D IFFERENT S CENARIOS
charging current equals the equalization current, then the entire
current shall be bypassed, and the battery is protected against
overcharging; this is also represented in Fig. 12(a) by the stable
voltages of batteries at about 6.75 V.
The operation of the overdischarge protection circuit has
been explained in Table III for different scenarios. A voltage
of 5.80 V is considered as a lower threshold voltage limit; if a
battery voltage falls below that limit, current has to be bypassed.
In Table III, B1 − B3 are the different battery voltages, and
BP1 − BP3 indicates the current through the bypass circuit for
batteries B1 − B3 . A load of 6.5 Ω is used across a stack of
batteries.
Figs. 13(a) and 14(b) depict the scenarios in Table III with
the currents flowing through load and bypass circuits that, in
turn, explains the working of overdischarge protection circuit.
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2727
Fig. 12. (a) Overvoltage protection of four lead–acid batteries, i.e., bypassing.
(b) Charging current of 2.5 A and bypass current through a 2.8-Ω resistor during
the overvoltage protection experiment.
TABLE III
TABLE I NDICATING W ORKING OF OVERDISCHARGE
P ROTECTION C IRCUIT
Channel 1 in Figs. 13(a) and 14(a) represents the bypass current
for Battery1 , channel 2 represents the bypass current for
Battery2 , and channel 3 represents the bypass current for
Battery3 . Channel 4 in Figs. 13(b) and 14(b) represents load
current. Figs. 13 and 14 have a scale of 1 A/div.
VI. A DVANTAGES OF THE P ROPOSED C HARGE
E QUALIZATION C IRCUIT
The charge equalization circuit in Fig. 4(a) has the follow-
ing advantages when compared with the existing topologies
described in Section II.
• Charge equalization can be achieved during the idle peri-
ods, charging periods, and discharging periods of the stack
operation.
• Energy is not dissipated across the passive element,
thereby increasing the efficiency of the stack.
2728 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 13. (a) Bypass currents for Case1 in Table III. (b) Load current for Case1
in Table III.
Fig. 14. (a) Bypass currents for Case2 in Table III. (b) Load current for Case2
in Table III.
• The circuit increases reliability and reduces the cost of
cooling because of the elimination of hot spots and keeps
a battery within its temperature limits.
• Charge transfer takes place from the highest SOC battery
to the lowest SOC battery, thereby outperforming the
locally balanced schemes.
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• The charge equalization process speeds up due to transfer
of energy from the strong battery to the weak battery in a
stack.
• Voltage does not build across all the switches in the stack
because only the switching circuitry of the highest SOC
battery and the lowest SOC battery is operating, thereby
reducing the imbalance in the stack due to the voltage
across switches.
• The circuit eliminates the problem of ground isolation
and complexity in the implementation of the bidirectional
dc/dc converter topology [1].
• There is no requirement for a common core for charge
transfer, thereby eliminating complexity in the multiwind-
ing implementation and leakage inductance losses [1].
• The number of devices in the proposed topology is large;
however, due to the use of semiconductor switches, it will
be cheaper than the multiwinding core.
VII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a BMS has been proposed, which can perform
charge equalization during charging, discharging, and idle pe-
riods along with overvoltage and overdischarge protection of
each battery. The developed BMS in this paper has all the nec-
essary features of a BMS to improve battery life by operating
the battery within voltage limits and improves the capacity and
reliability of the battery stack by equalizing the charge in the
stack. Charge equalization can be performed during the idle
period of the stack, which overcomes the disadvantages of sev-
eral BMS; moreover, the developed BMS tries to eliminate the
disadvantages associated with several other charge equalization
techniques proposed.
R EFERENCES
[1] N. H. Kutkut and D. M. Divan, “Dynamic equalization techniques
for series battery stacks,” in Proc. IEEE Telecommun. Energy Conf.,
Oct. 1996, pp. 514–521.
[2] M. J. Isaacson, R. P. Hollandsworth, P. J. Giampaoli, F. A. Linkowsky,
A. Salim, and V. L. Teofilo, “Advanced lithium ion battery charger,” in
Proc. 15th Annu. IEEE Battery Conf. Appl. Adv., Jan. 2000, pp. 193–198.
[3] D. Dörffel, Energy management of hybrid electric vehicles (MPhil/PhD
project 9 months Dissertation Report), Southampton, U.K. [Online].
Available: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/822/01/9months_report.pdf
[4] M. Amir Rahimi, “A lithium-ion battery charger for charging up
to eight cells,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Veh. Power Propulsion, Sep. 2005,
pp. 131–135.
[5] C. Pascual and P. T. Krein, “Switched capacitor system for automatic se-
ries battery equalization,” in Proc. 12th Annu. IEEE Appl. Power Electron.
Conf., Feb. 1997, vol. 2, pp. 848–854.
[6] Y.-S. Lee and M.-W. Cheng, “Intelligent control battery equalization for
series connected lithium-ion battery strings,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.,
vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 1297–1307, Oct. 2005.
[7] N. H. Kutkut, H. L. N. Wiegman, D. M. Divan, and D. W. Novotny,
“Charge equalization for an electric vehicle battery system,” IEEE Trans.
Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 235–246, Jan. 1998.
[8] B. Magistro, T. Vo, and C. Gras, “Battery management for NiZn batter-
ies,” University of Akron Patent Disclosure 796, Apr. 2009.
[9] T. T. Hartley and C. F. Lorenzo, “Optimal battery charging for damage
mitigation,” U.S. Patent 7 489 107, Feb. 10, 2009.
[10] J. P. Christophersen, C. G. Motloch, C. D. Ho, J. L. Morrison,
R. C. Fenton, V. S. Battaglia, and T. Q. Duong, “Lumped parameter
modeling as a predictive tool for a battery status monitor,” in Proc. IEEE
Semiannu. Veh. Technol. Conf., Oct. 4, 2003, pp. 3257–3261.
YARLAGADDA et al.: ACTIVE CHARGE EQUALIZATION TECHNIQUE BASED ON A DC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
Sriram Yarlagadda received the B.Tech. degree
from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University,
Hyderabad, India, in 2008 and the M.S. degree in
electrical engineering from The University of Akron,
Akron, OH, USA, in 2011.
Since 2011, he has been a Software Development
Engineer II with Omron Automotive Electronics,
Inc., Novi, MI, USA. From 2008 to 2011, he was
a Teaching Assistant with The University of Akron,
guiding students in the course work of design of
electric and hybrid vehicles, control systems, and
signals and systems. He coordinated and supported The University of Akron
team in designing and developing a motor controller for the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration’s Lunabotics Mining Competition. He has
conducted research on developing a battery management system based on active
charge equalization techniques and an analog loop technique. He developed
MATLAB–Simulink-model-based simulations for analysis of electric and hy-
brid vehicle performance and battery characterization. His research interests
include design of power electronic converters, motor controls, and embedded
programming.
Tom T. Hartley (M’77) received the B.S.E.E. degree
and the B.A. degree in physics from Ohio Northern
University, Ada, OH, USA, in 1980 and the M.S.
degree in physics and the Ph.D. degree in electri-
cal engineering, specializing in real-time simulation
software and hardware, from Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, TN, USA, in 1982 and 1984, respectively.
Since 1984, he has been with The University of
Akron, Akron, OH, USA, where he is currently a
Professor of electrical and computer engineering. He
has worked at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center for several sabbaticals in the
areas of jet engine modeling and simulation, battery modeling and manage-
ment, and fractional-order system theory. He is currently the Technical Director
of the Wright Center for Sensor System Engineering, The University of Akron,
where his areas of interest include microcontroller applications and energy
storage and management. He has been advising the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering in undergraduate robotics and electric vehicle com-
petitions, including Construction in Harsh Environments, National Robotics
Challenge, ChallengeX, the Trinity College Firefighting Robot, RoboGames,
Automotive X-Prize, NASA Lunabotics, NASA Moon Work, and the Intelligent
Ground Vehicle Competition.
Dr. Hartley was awarded the College of Engineering Outstanding Teacher in
2004 and recognized as an Outstanding Researcher in 2010.
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2729
Iqbal Husain (S’89–M’89–SM’99–F’09) received
the B.Sc. degree from Bangladesh University of
Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in
1987 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Texas
A&M University, College Station, TX, USA, in 1989
and 1993, respectively.
He is currently the ABB Distinguished Professor
with the Department of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh,
NC, USA, engaged in teaching and research. He
is the Codirector of the Advanced Transportation
Energy Center and a faculty member with the National Science Foundation
Engineering Research Center for Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery
and Management, North Carolina State University. Prior to joining North
Carolina State University, he was with The University of Akron, Akron, OH,
USA, where he built a successful electric and hybrid vehicle program. In 2001,
he was a Visiting Professor with Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.
In the summer of 1996 and 1997, he was a Researcher with Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base Laboratories. Previously, he was a Lecturer with Texas A&M
University and a Consulting Engineer with Delco Chassis, Dayton, OH, USA.
His research interests include control and modeling of electrical drives, design
of electric machines, development of power conditioning circuits, and design
and modeling of electric and hybrid vehicle systems.
Dr. Husain received the 2006 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Vin-
cent Bendix Automotive Electronics Engineering Award, the 2004 College of
Engineering Outstanding Researcher Award, the 2000 IEEE Third Millennium
Medal, and the 1998 IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Outstanding
Young Member Award. He was also a recipient of the 2006 IEEE Industry
Applications Magazine paper award and four IEEE IAS Committee prize paper
awards. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of IAS for 2012–2013.