2874 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO.

6, JUNE 2014

Multiphase Interleaved Converter for Lithium Battery

Active Balancing
Fabien Mestrallet, Lyubomir Kerachev, Jean-Christophe Crebier, and Alexandre Collet

Abstract—In this paper, an innovative any cell(s) to any cell(s)

active balancing converter for lithium battery stack management
is presented. Based on multiphase converter legs connected to each
lithium battery potential, it is able to transfer energy from any
cell(s) to any cell(s). First, a basic “natural” balancing control
strategy is presented. Then, based on the perspective of a high level
of integration, an interleaved topology is proposed as an evolution
of the converter for the downsizing of the passive components. It
is explained how the large increase in the number of components
is compensated by the high level of integration obtained for the
given converter topology. Simulation and experimental results are
provided to demonstrate the interest of the converter for active
balancing of lithium-based battery stacks.
Index Terms—Batteries, DC–DC power conversion, energy con-
version, energy management.

I. INTRODUCTION
ITHIUM-BASED battery stacks need effective battery
L management systems to prevent the premature state of
health diminution and failures. Active balancing techniques are
Fig. 1. Structure of the natural cell balancing device.

considered [1]–[5] to guarantee voltage balance among series
connected cells. Moreover, active balancing which involves bal-
ancing currents comparable to the nominal battery usage current
is known as “real-time active balancing.” It enables access to
all available energy in the stack if the storage capabilities of the
elementary cells are not identical
The main principles of balancing techniques are pre-
sented in [1]. For high-current balancing systems, inductor- or
transformer-based converters are mandatory. Therefore, strate-
gies to downsize the passive components are crucial to ensure
technological and economic viability of such active balancing
systems.
This paper presents a multiphase active balancing topology,
based on a natural balancing control strategy. This topology al-
lows transferring high-energy quantities from any overcharged
cell(s) to any undercharged cell(s) without using transformers.
This can be done under any operating conditions applied to the
stack, charging or discharging, high- or low-power rates, thanks
to the parallel nature of the topology. In order to compensate
in real time, the imbalances created by the load current of the
battery, balancing systems with high power capabilities are re-
quired. This is called real-time active balancing, and it is aimed
to take advantage of unequally stored amount of energies in the
stack during its charge or discharge phases.
Based on the synchronous buck–boost converter topology,
each phase is connected at the potential available between two
consecutive battery cells through an inductor, as shown in Fig. 1,
and is able to maintain and regulate its potential to a fraction of
the total voltage available across the battery stack.
Fig. 1 below presents the topology and its connections to a
battery stack. The topology is able to transfer energy from any
cell(s) to any cell(s) with seamless implementation. Compared
to cell to cell active balancing systems such as in [5], this ar-
chitecture is able to provide real-time balancing feature under
higher efficiency especially for large battery stacks (greater than
four cells in series for example).

II. OPERATING PRINCIPLE AND DESIGN

Manuscript received October 8, 2012; revised January 11, 2013, March 15,
2013 and June 26, 2013; accepted July 24, 2013. Date of current version January A. Operating Principle
29, 2014. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor B. Lehman.
F. Mestrallet, L. Kerachev, and J.-C. Crebier are with the Grenoble The operating principle of this topology is based on the natural
Electrical Engineering Laboratory, 38402 Grenoble, France (e-mail: fabien. cell balancing control technique. In this case, the energy flows
mestrallet@g2elab.grenoble-inp.fr; lyubomir.kerachev@g2elab.grenoble-inp.
fr; jean-christophe.crebier@g2elab.grenoble-inp.fr). naturally to where it is needed without any voltage or current
A. Collet is with the Freemens, 38000 Grenoble, France (e-mail: alexandre. sensing. It is also possible to control the energy given to or taken
collet@freemens.fr). from each cell by regulating the current flowing inside each
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. inductor. This control technique is called forced cell balancing
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2013.2276152 mode but it is not developed in this paper because it can be
0885-8993 © 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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 MESTRALLET et al.: MULTIPHASE INTERLEAVED CONVERTER FOR LITHIUM BATTERY ACTIVE BALANCING 2875

Fig. 2. Development of the balancing structure based on the buck–boost con-

verter topology. (a) Typical buck–boost converter. (b) Modified (synchronous)
buck–boost converter.

Fig. 4. Energy transfer from the overcharged cell(s) to the undercharged

cell(s).

of the cells connected in series in the stack. Equation (2) gives

the duty cycle for each converter leg and the (3) and (4) show
how the input voltage VIN and the output voltage VOUT for each
converter leg are defined
VOUTm
αm = (2)
VINm + VOUTm

m
VINm = VCELLi (3)
i=1


N
VOUTm = VCELLi (4)
Fig. 3. Converter legs input and output voltage definition. i=m +1

where m is the number of cells on the leg input, m ∈

applied to the same structure without changes in the operating
principles.
The cell balancing circuit (see Fig. 1) is composed of N–1
parallel converter legs, where N is the number of cells in the
battery stack. Each converter leg represents a modified buck–
boost converter which operates in bidirectional continuous cur-
rent mode. Its input and output voltages are composed of one or
more cells connected in series. As shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), the
diode of the typical buck–boost converter structure is replaced
by a MOSFET transistor in order to ensure bidirectional energy
transfer and continuous current mode. The load is replaced by a
voltage source which represents a number of cells connected in
series. For each converter leg, the input voltage source can be
represented by a part of the stack cells and the output voltage
can be represented by the remaining part of the stack cells as
illustrated in Fig. 3.
For each converter leg, the transistors are driven in comple-
mentary mode with a duty cycle α fixed as a function of the leg
input and output voltages
VOUT
α= . (1)
VIN + VOUT
A constant duty cycle switching pattern generates on one side
of the inductor an average voltage level equal to a fraction of
the total voltage available across the battery stack. If all cells are
balanced, the potential on the other side of the inductor is the
same. If this is not the case, a current flows through the inductor
in order to equalize both voltage potentials.
The converter topology can be adapted to any battery stack as
the number of the converter legs is N –1, where N is the number
int [1; N − 1], and VCELLi is the corresponding cell voltage.
In order to keep all cell voltages equal, (2), (3), and (4) are
used to obtain each duty cycle value under natural active bal-
ancing control technique
N −m
αm = (5)
N
B. Deriving Cell Balancing Current Value
The natural energy transfer from any overcharged cell(s) to
any undercharged cell(s) is possible thanks to balancing currents
IL m which are produced by any unbalanced voltage across each
converter inductor leg.
In this case, the level of the balancing current in each converter
leg is defined by the potential differences between the cells and
the parasitic resistances in the circuit. Fig. 4 shows the equivalent
circuit of one converter leg with lumped parasitic resistances
where the energy transfer is possible in the two directions from
the overcharged cell(s) to the undercharged cell(s). For instance
on Fig. 4, if αm ·VINm is greater than (1–αm )·VOUTm , then the
thick arrows show the current and the energy transfer directions
from the overcharged cell to the undercharged cell. The thin
arrows show the opposite case.
As the voltage drops across the parasitic resistances are con-
sidered, αm ·VINm = (1– αm )·VOUTm is transformed to
αm · VINm − (RCINm + RT (2m −1) + RL m ) · αm · IL m
= (1 − αm ) · VOUTm + (RCOUTm + RT 2m + RL m )
· (1 − αm ) · IL m . (6)

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 2876 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 6, JUNE 2014

This in return yields the mean steady-state balancing current ex-

pression (7), shown at the bottom of the page, where, RT (2m −1)
and RT 2m are the transistor static drain-source on resistances;
RCINm , RCOUTm are respectively the cell internal resistances
on the input and the output of one converter leg; RL m , is the
inductor internal resistance.
The input and output cell internal resistances are the sum of
the total number of internal resistances of the cells which com-
pose the input and the output converter leg voltage sources. If
these internal resistances are considered the same, the following
expressions are derived:
RCINm = m · RC (8)
RCOUTm = (N − m) · RC (9)
where RC is the internal resistance of one cell.
If the transistor resistances are considered the same (RT ), (7)
can be simplified to
αm · VINm − (1 − αm ) · VOUTm
IL m = .
[αm · m + (1−αm ) · (N −m)] · RC +RT +RL m
(10)
Equation (10) clearly outlines the dependence of balancing cur-
rent for each inductor as a function of the voltage unbalance Fig. 5. Eight-cell balancing system.
between the cells. To keep the voltages equal, the balancing
currents flow naturally in the correct directions: from where the
voltage potential fraction is greater to where the voltage poten-
tial fraction is smaller. If the voltage unbalance concerns two
cells, the balancing current flows from the overcharged cell to
the undercharged cell. The absolute value of the mean balanc-
ing current is greater at the beginning of the cell equalization
process when the potential differences between the cells are
greater, and it decreases with the cell voltage equalization when
the potential differences between the cells decrease. It is possi-
ble that the balancing current reaches very high values in case
of high mismatches between the cell voltages. Therefore, the Fig. 6. Cell voltage equalization process of eight cells under battery stack
implementation of current or thermal clamping is mandatory in charging process.
order to avoid the device destruction but this is not considered
in this paper.
For the purpose of reducing the simulation time, the cell ca-
pacities in the model have been rated at 0.1mAh. The simulation
C. Simulation Results
parameters consider the parasitic resistances depicted in Fig. 4.
A structure of an eight-cell balancing system has been simu- They are defined as follows: RC = 10 mΩ, RL m = 20 mΩ,
lated and its control strategy is shown in Fig. 5. The converter RT = 20 mΩ, Lm = 120 μH. The switching frequency and the
has seven legs as the stack contains eight cells. The duty cycle total voltage of the battery stack are, respectively, f = 100 kHz
of each converter leg is defined using the (4) and (5) and their and VSTACK = 24 V.
values can be seen on the same figure. Fig. 7 shows the variations of the cell balancing current in
Fig. 6 represents the cell voltage equalization process while each converter leg in the cell active balancing structure.
charging the battery stack where the voltages of the cells in the Simulation results show how the values of the balancing cur-
stack have been defined at different levels. Since it is a natural rents decrease with time during the cell voltage equalization.
balancing system, voltages and currents are not controlled and There are different values of the balancing currents because
a transient appears before the stabilization of the equalization there are different cell voltage unbalances. Moreover, as all
process which converges all the cell voltages toward a similar the inductors are designed depending on the greatest balanc-
increasing voltage level. ing current ripple (ΔIL 4 = 0.5 A max for α4 = 0.5), the

αm · VINm − (1 − αm ) · VOUTm
IL m = (7)
αm · (RCINm + RT (2m −1) ) + (1 − αm ) · (RCOUTm + RT 2m ) + RL m

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 MESTRALLET et al.: MULTIPHASE INTERLEAVED CONVERTER FOR LITHIUM BATTERY ACTIVE BALANCING
Fig. 7. Balancing current evolution for eight cells.
balancing current ripple is different for each converter leg due
to the different duty cycles. This could be optimized by design-
ing a specific inductor for each duty cycle and converter leg,
but it is not considered in this paper. Since the objective is to
find a generic solution for the balancing leg, this optimization
is not sufficient and optimal compared to the one proposed in
Section III.
One of the several advantages of this converter is its generic
topology. All converter legs are connected to the same dc bus,
making possible the monolithic or hybrid integration of all
power devices and associated drivers and driver supplies [6], [7].
Even if the active balancing converter architecture seems com-
plicated, its monolithic integration in CMOS or BCD technolo-
gies for medium voltage applications such as 24 V batteries is
clearly possible with a significant simplification in implemen-
tation constraints. On the other hand, increasing the nominal
voltage of the battery by increasing the number of battery cells
would lead to larger inductors to filter larger voltage ripples.
This clearly points out the necessity to optimize the inductor
sizes.
Based on these considerations, optimization efforts must fo-
cus on the design of the inductors. Increasing the switching
frequency is a first response to downsize the inductors. Another
approach based on interleaved converters can also be consid-
ered [8]–[10]. Making the assumption that numerous converter
legs can be integrated without extra difficulties, each converter
leg of the topology depicted in Fig. 1 can be replaced by several
legs in parallel. These paralleled legs will be interleaved and
connected through regular or coupled inductors.
III. INTERLEAVING THE CELL BALANCING DEVICE
A. Optimization of the Converter leg
In order to reduce the volume of the balancing system, a solu-
tion based on the interleaved converter approach [8] is chosen.
Multiphase converters [9], [10] are based on parallel structures
which allow an effective sharing of the current flow and of the
power losses in each component. Another advantage of inter-
leaved converters is the reduced size of their magnetic compo-
nents while offering substantial voltage and current ripple re-
ductions. The standard inductors can also be replaced by smaller
coupled inductors as detailed in Section III-B.
However, interleaved converters suffer from higher complex-
ity due to the increased number of components compared to the
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2877
Fig. 8. One balancing leg and its interleaved version with q phases.
mono-phase equivalent architectures. A solution related to the
active devices and associated drivers can be their assembly in
one unique silicon die. The use of monolithic integration tech-
niques reduces the number and the volume of active devices and
increases the system reliability [11], [12]. Therefore, the basic
leg of the balancing system evolves to an interleaved version
with coupled inductors as shown in Fig. 8.
B. Theoretical Design : Coupled Inductors
Reducing the dc component of the magnetic flux is a solution
to decrease the size of the magnetic components. By coupling
two inductors in opposite directions, the dc parts of the mag-
netic flux are compensated in both windings [14]. The size of
the magnetic core can be reduced since, theoretically, only the
ac part of the magnetic flux remains. In practice since there is
always a leakage inductance, the dc part cannot be totally com-
pensated and it must be considered in the design of the coupled
inductors. There are many coupled inductor configurations and
the most conventional is the cyclic cascade one [10], [13].
In this configuration, coupled inductors need specific values
of leakage inductance to control the current output ripple of
the interleaved converters. The following expression is used to
establish the needed value of the leakage inductance:
2 · VSTACK · sin(π · q · α)
Lf = (11)
q · π · ΔIs · 2 · π · f
where VSTACK is the input voltage of the converter (i.e., the
battery stack voltage), q is the number of interleaved phases,
f is the switching frequency, ΔIs is the desired output current
ripple.
Then, depending on the desired coupling factor k of each
coupled inductor, the magnetizing inductance Lm can be found
as in (12)
k
Lm = · Lf . (12)
1−k
Fig. 9 is a representation of (11) with the following parameters:
VIN = 25.6 V (eight lithium-based cells), q = 5, f = 250 kHz,
and ΔIS = 0.5 A. It shows an interesting point for the design
of the interleaved converter with coupled inductors. If the duty
cycle of a q phase interleaved converter is a multiple of 1/q, the
output current ripple is zero. This can optimize the output filter
of the converter but not the inductor itself since there is still a
current ripple inside the inductors which has to be controlled by
the magnetizing inductances.
 2878
Fig. 9. Variation of the needed leakage inductance as a function of duty cycle.
Fig. 10. Current wave forms of an interleaved equalizer leg: (a) current in
each phase of an interleaved leg and (b) output current of an interleaved leg.
C. Simulation results
The converter is simulated with the following parameters:
eight-cell battery stack (24 V nominal voltage), five interleaved
phases connected to the central potential of the stack and operat-
ing under 50% duty cycle. The control signal of each interleaved
phase is phase shifted by 2.π/5. As detailed in [13], the number
of interleaved legs has been set to five because it is a solution
compromising between the number and size of coupled induc-
tors and the control complexity.
As shown in Fig. 5, the respective duty cycles of each leg of
the equalizer are multiples of 1/8. In this case and according to
Fig. 9, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 90% duty cycles are the worst
cases because they force the leakage inductance to be maximal
for a given current ripple. In other words, for the same inductor,
the other duty cycles different from these values will produce
a smaller ripple. The operation of the converter in forced or
natural active balancing will always operate with such a design.
Fig. 10(a) presents the simulation results of the phase cur-
rents of an interleaved leg under an active, natural balancing
operation. The simulation parameters are identical to those in
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 6, JUNE 2014
Fig. 11. View of the prototype for eight-cell balancing device. Dashed line:
driver circuits. Dotted line: power MOSFET circuits. Full line: inductors.
Fig. 12. Voltage variation of eight unbalanced cells in an idle state.
the previous model (see Section II-C), except the switching fre-
quency f = 250 kHz, the magnetizing inductance Lm = 20 μH,
and the leakage inductance Lf = 3.8 μH. The voltage conver-
gence of the cells is comparable to the results presented in Fig. 6.
The output current ripple observed in Fig. 10(b) depends on the
duty cycle value according to Fig. 9. In our case, the selected
values of magnetizing and leakage inductances at a duty cycle
of 50% give a current ripple value of 0.66 A in each phase of
the interleaved converter and an output current ripple value of
0.5 A. The greater number of legs allows the opportunity to han-
dle larger current while reducing greatly the size of the passive
components.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Realization of Eight-Cell Balancing Device
First, a noninterleaved active cell balancing converter module
for eight cells (24 V), 5 A maximum balancing current, 0.5 A
maximum balancing current ripple, and 100 kHz switching fre-
quency is designed and built. The picture in Fig. 11 shows a
view of the prototype. For the tests, the control signals of each
converter leg are generated by a microcontroller.
The cell balancing functionality is experimentally tested and
validated. Fig. 12 presents the voltage variations for eight un-
balanced cells of 10Ah for 60 min of voltage equalization. In
this experiment, the entire stack is not charging or discharging.
The cells are in an idle state.
In another testing condition, the variation of the balancing
current (see IL 2 in Fig. 5) between two voltage unbalanced
cells under a heavy unbalance of 0.5 V is presented in Fig. 13.
The absolute value of the balancing current decreases with the
voltage equalization of the cells which confirms the theoretical
analysis and the simulation results of the topology.
 MESTRALLET et al.: MULTIPHASE INTERLEAVED CONVERTER FOR LITHIUM BATTERY ACTIVE BALANCING 2879

Fig. 15. Volume optimized prototype of one leg of the first balancing device.

Fig. 13. Balancing current variation between two adjecent cells.

Fig. 14. Comparison between ETD29 and E95 magnetic core sizes.

B. Realization of One Interleaved Cell

Balancing Converter leg
A five-phase interleaved converter with the comparable input Fig. 16. Phase current (gray curve) of one interleaved phase. Channel 1 is the
voltage in the middle of a switching leg. Channel 2 is the output voltage on a
cell voltages is designed and realized. The specifications of this resistive charge without filtering capacitor. Channel 4 is the ouput current.
converter are: switching frequency of 250 kHz, a cell balancing
current of 10 A and 0.5 A an inductor current ripple of 0.5 A. If
these parameters have been defined for the basic noninterleaved
converter, the volume of its inductor would be similar. This
makes possible the comparison of the volume between the real-
ized basic converter and the interleaved one. The magnetic core
used for the realization of the coupled inductors is ER95, while
the inductor used in the design of the noninterleaved converter
is realized with magnetic core ETD29 (see Fig. 11). The occu-
pied volume of the former inductor (using the ETD29 magnetic
core) has been reduced roughly by a factor of ten (see Fig. 14)
when using the five coupled inductors (using the ER95 magnetic
Fig. 17. Thermal picture in natural convection of the interleaved converter on
core). a resistive charge at 10 A output current, 24 V input voltage, and 50% duty
Fig. 15 presents a picture of the interleaved leg prototype. cycle.
Its volume has been reduced to 15 cm3 compared to 80 cm3 of
the first prototype but at the cost of a greater complexity. In the
first design of the interleaved topology, the active devices are A thermal imaging of the converter under nominal operation
implemented with discrete components; this demonstrates the confirms that the losses are almost shared equally in all com-
working principle; however, the volume is not optimized. ponents. In Fig. 17, the heat is well distributed on the printed
Figs. 16 and 17 show results under maximum power op- circuit board. The temperature difference of a few degrees on
eration. The measured currents validate the simulation results. the left side of the board can be explained by the presence of
There is a 0.66 A ripple in the phase currents. Therefore, the the power tracks (on the bottom left layer of the printed circuit
current is naturally shared between all interleaved converter board) and connectors which drain the heat and decrease the
legs, making implementation simple and reliable. temperature around this area.

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 2880
Fig. 18. Efficiency of the basic converter leg and of the interleaved converter.
An efficiency analysis is carried out for both structures. One
converter leg of the first prototype and the interleaved converter
leg have been tested under different power levels and a fixed
duty cycle of 50%. As it can be observed in Fig. 18, the struc-
ture of the single phase converter is more efficient for lower
power rates (up to 2/3 of nominal power). This is essentially
due to the reduced consumption of the single driver with only
one supply. On the other hand, the five- leg interleaved con-
verter has a greater number of drivers, supplies, and isolation
units, increasing permanent losses independent of the load level.
Thus, the one leg converter seems more adapted to the natural
active balancing principle, where the device is permanently op-
erating and the small cell voltage mismatches cannot produce
high balancing currents values in the cells, i.e., the converter
does not reach its maximum power operating point. Moreover,
the structure of the interleaved converter is more efficient for
higher power rates—its bad efficiency at low output power is
easily explained by its higher switching losses. Thus, it is more
adapted to the forced balancing operation since the converter is
always running at its maximum power operating point in order
to equalize the cell voltage mismatches in the shortest time.
The structure proposed in this paper offers an alternative
for transformer-based architectures for energy transfer between
cells [1]–[5]. It gives similar efficiency of 90–94% compared to
the other balancing structures [5], [15], [16]. The coast of this
architecture is comparable to the coast of the other active balanc-
ing topologies. However, for series production, the integration
of the active components can make it cost attractive.
Fig. 19 presents a picture of the single-phase active cell bal-
ancing converter where one of its legs has been replaced by an
interleaved leg and the system is running under natural cell bal-
ancing principle mode. Therefore, the eight-cell conventional
balancing device is connected to a battery stack except one leg
which is replaced by the interleaved optimized leg.
The battery used for this experiment has the following speci-
fications: LiFePO4 24 V – 10 A.h. At its initial state in Fig. 23,
there is one heavily unbalanced cell at 2.9 V while the voltages
of all other cells are between 3.25 and 3.35 V.
The experimental results on Fig. 20 correspond to what could
be expected in terms of functionality. 60 min after the beginning
of the operation, all the cells have a voltage difference less than
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 6, JUNE 2014
Fig. 19. Eight-cell balancing device prototype with one leg replaced by an
interleaved converter unit.
Fig. 20. Voltage of each cell upon time during equalization of an eight-cell
battery stack.
100 mV. If this system has no power losses, it could operate
continuously during the lifetime of the battery. In practice, when
the cell voltages are equal, the mean value of the balancing
current in each balancing leg is zero. However, there is an energy
exchange between the cells due to the current ripple in the
inductors while the converter is still operating. In this case,
the equalizing process will generate more losses than gain. In
other words, the device has to be stopped when the differences
between the cell voltages are very small.
There are parasitic resistances in the circuits due to fuses
and many connections for the protection of the cells and the
converters; these equalization durations could be improved by
further reducing of these parasitic resistances. Another way to
reduce the balancing duration is via implementing the forced
balancing principle which increases the balancing currents. This
work is left for the future.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a multiphase converter for cell active balancing
is proposed. The topology is based on the natural cell balancing
operating principle, where the energy flows naturally into the
cells as needed without any voltage or current sensing. A struc-
ture for balancing of eight cells is designed and built. Simulation
and experimental results demonstrate its functionality. The main
disadvantage of this structure is the direct dependence of the in-
ductor volume to the converter parameters such as maximum
current, switching frequency, and nominal dc bus voltage.
 MESTRALLET et al.: MULTIPHASE INTERLEAVED CONVERTER FOR LITHIUM BATTERY ACTIVE BALANCING
A solution based on interleaved converters with coupled in-
ductors is proposed. The increase in the number of active devices
greatly reduces the volume of the passive magnetic components.
Thanks to functional and hybrid integration, this approach could
be very attractive for active balancing of lithium-based batteries.
The proposed system and method are not limited to lithium-
based batteries. Every battery type can be used since the goal
of natural balancing is to equalize the cell voltages. In order to
accelerate the balancing or to control the state of charge of each
cell, forced balancing can be used to regulate the currents, i.e.,
the charge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the French government for
its Ph.D. founding as well as Gravit and CNRS institution for
their supports.
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Fabien Mestrallet received the Graduate degree in
engineering from the Grenoble Institute of Technol-
ogy, Valence, France, in 2010, where he is currently
working toward the Ph.D. degree.
His research interests include battery manage-
ment systems and more particularly on active bal-
ancing, and its effects on electrochemical cells. His
concern focuses on energy management systems, de-
velopment of innovative concepts and products.
Lyubomir Kerachev received the Graduate degree in
engineering from the Technical University of Sofia,
Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2009, and he received the M.S
degree from the Grenoble Institute of Technology,
Valence, France. He is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree from the Grenoble Electrical Engi-
neering Laborary, University of Grenoble, Grenoble,
France.
His research interests include the integration of
low-power conversion structures for battery and pho-
tovoltaic systems.
Jean-Christophe Crebier received the B.S. degree
in electrical engineering from the National Poly-
technical Institute of Grenoble, Grenoble, France,
in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree in power electron-
ics, electromagnetic compatibility, and power factor
correction from Laboratoire d’Electrotechnique de
Grenoble, Institut National Polytechnique de Greno-
ble, Grenoble, in 1999.
In 1999, he was a Postdoctoral student in the Cen-
ter for Power Electronics Systems, Blacksburg, VA,
USA, doing research in system integration. In 2001,
he was hired by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France,
as a Full-Time Researcher in power electronics. He is currently with Grenoble
Electrical Engineering Laboratory, Grenoble. His main research interests in-
clude system and functional, hybrid and monolithic integration and packaging
for medium-to-high-voltage active devices, and applications to the management
of multicell systems such as photovoltaic, batteries, and distributed systems.
Alexandre Collet received the Graduate degree in
engineering from the Grenoble Institute of Technol-
ogy, Valence, France, in 2010.
He was a CNRS Research Engineer from 2010 to
2011. He is the CEO of Freemens, Grenoble since
October 2011. His area of expertise covers power
electronics and battery management systems.