Battery Management Systems

Testing
Derek Boychuk – Customer Solutions Architect, OPAL-RT
RT Spotlight 2019 – San Francisco

1
 TODAY’S AGENDA
• Intro to Battery Management Systems

• Hardware and Software Overview

• Focus on BMS HiL

• Questions

2
 What is a Battery Management System
A BMS can have many different functions:
Monitoring
• Total and individual cell voltage monitoring
• Temperature monitoring
• State of Charge (SOC) of the battery
• State of Health (SOH) of the battery
• State of Power (SOP) of the battery
• Current flow management
• Cell balancing
• Chassis isolation monitoring
Computing
• Charge Current Limit (CCL) & Discharge Current Limit (DCL)
• Energy Delivered in kWh
• Number of cycles
Communication
Optimization
Etc.
3
 What is a Battery Management System
 A general control algorithm of a BMS will:

- Measure cell voltages

- Measure and control current discharge and charge
- Calculate State of Charge (SoC)
- Monitor temperatures
- Balance cells actively or passively during charging
 What is a Battery Management System
In order to test a BMS, a battery (or battery emulator) is
needed

Real batteries are:

- Expensive
- A source of danger
- Limited (temperature, voltage, current, chemistry)
- Not ‘fault testing’ safe
- Required to have necessary chamber(s), chilling, chargers,
etc

Battery Emulators are:

- None of the above
 BMS Architecture for OPAL-RT
 Testing a BMS can be done in several ways:
- SIL
- RCP
- HIL
 Generally however, the majority of BMS projects are HIL-
approach
 Other types of BMS testing - SIL
• Possibility to simulate a
complete mechanical and/or Complete system
electrical system simulation (full EV
power system)
• Simulate controller and plant
simultaneously

Control(s) for battery,

motor, EV, etc

Simulated battery
model (various
chemistries)
Other types of BMS testing - RCP
Optional Real Battery Cells

• Quickly modify control

algorithms
• Connect to real battery stack or
battery cell emulator

Optional Battery Cell

Emulators

Simulated Controller(s)
 BMS Architecture - HIL
More commonly, a BMS configuration is as follows: Device Under
Test (DUT)

1) Simulation  OPAL-RT
• Battery model simulating on OPAL-RT hardware
• Other electrical or mechanical components
• Control algorithms

2) Battery Cell Emulation  Third-Party

• Voltage Simulated Battery
• Current Model (Real-Time)
+

• Temperature Battery Cell Emulators

• Faults
• Isolation

3) Device Under Test  Customer

• Can be one device or several (1BMS + n other boards)
OPAL-RT’s BMS Solution
General BMS HiL Architecture

Device under Test (DUT)

Breakout Box, FIU

Signal Routing

Loads, Relays, Sensor Emulation, etc

Signal Conditioning

Isolation
Battery Cell Emulation Temperature Sensor Emulation
Monitoring

Real-Time Simulation (Battery cells, other dynamics, control, etc)

Low Power (High Voltage/High Power) for Stack Voltage/Current

Power Supply (for DUT)

BMS HiL – Requirements and Features

• Cell simulation
• Temperature
• CAN/SPI
• Fault injection
• Unit testing
• Real-time
• Safety
• Isolation testing
• Reliability
• Full-stack rating
HIL for EV – Architecture (NI)
 BMS HiL – Architecture

Real Voltage Voltage

Real Current Current
Temperature Temperature
(Thermistor)
CAN

BMS Battery Cell Real-Time Battery

(DUT) Emulator Simulation Model
 BMS HiL – Cell Simulation with
•12 cells/2U; scalable to 200 cells
•Sinking/sourcing current up to +/- 4.9ª
•Voltage range of 0.01 to 8V (accuracy 0.5mV)
•Built-in fault injection:
• open/short circuit, polarity reversal
•Communication via CAN and/or EtherCAT
•Isolation : 2,000 V
•Leakage current (µA) & Coulomb measurements
 BMS HiL – Cell Simulation
Larger testing capability with:
- Temperature simulation using NTC/PTC
- High voltage isolation testing
- Extended fault simulation
- Active and passive balancing

Full cell emulation allows for the

testing & validation of:
- BMS controller(s)
- Load
- Charger
- Etc
Embedded Faulting Capability
Modularity for Extensive Testing
 BMS HiL – Hybrid Emulation
 Sometimes emulating the whole battery stack, cell by cell, can be
overkill… Full stack
voltage/current using
power supplies
 In certain cases, we propose a hybrid solution:

Detailed cell emulation

for smaller number of
cells
 Example of Cell Balancing Demo using
ORION BMS2

Real Voltage
Voltage Real Current
Current Temperature
Temperature (Thermistor)

CAN

Real-Time Battery BMS

Battery Cell (DUT)
Simulation Emulator
Model
Example of Cell Balancing Demo using
ORION BMS2
SPS Battery Model
 Simulating the Full EV Powertrain
One of the biggest advantages is the ability to couple the BMS + model with the electric motor
drive, all within the same real-time simulation

Vbat can be a detailed CPU battery model simulated and controlled by a real BMS

This whole circuit (plus mechanical coupling) is simulated on a FPGA

 BEYOND BMS  VEHICLE-TO-GRID (V2G/G2V) 24

Study the effects/behaviour of having an EV/battery connected to an electrical

grid
 i.e. distribution network, microgrid, charging

OPAL-RT’s industry-leading simulation tools are capable of simulating anything

from detailed converters to large scale networks
Battery
Cells
Simulated
Electrical
Grid

BMS
(UUT)
Thank You

Questions?