A Data Driven Model for Accurate SOC Estimation
in EVs
Xiao Cai2
Guangzhao Luo1, Jinhao 2
Stropower Company
Meng1, Xingchang Ji1 Xian, China
1 Bourgogne Franche-Comte,
School of Automation Emails:
Northwestern Polytechnical xiao.cai@stropower.com
University(NPU)
Xian, China
Emails:
guangzhao.luo@nwpu.edu.cn,
scmjh2008@163.com
18092732663@163.com
Abstract: Accurate state of charge (SOC) is critical for
battery energy management system in electric vehicle (EV)
application. Overcharge and over discharge will shorten
batterys lifespan and induce potential safety problem, which
may even permanently damage the lithium-ion battery. Thus, a
data driven model is proposed for improving the accuracy of
SOC estimation in this paper. A preliminary mathematic model
under constant current is established, which can match the
primary high SOC stage. Since the battery model is nonlinear,
model free adaptive control (MFAC) is used to get the dynamic
linearization model and accomplish SOC estimation process on
the basis of the mathematic model. With the small sample scale
of new data updated, a data driven model based on partial least
squares (PLS) is obtained online. The accuracy of the
mathematic model also decreases during the operating process.
Finally, the calculated values from the two different models are
mixed for an accurate SOC. Experimental results on lithium
polymer battery prove the effectiveness of the proposed method.
KeywordsSOC estimation, PLS, MFAC, Li-ion battery.
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the shortage of non-renewable energy resources
and environmental issues become increasingly prominent,
more attentions are paid to energy saving and emission
reduction. Diesel locomotive relies heavily on fossil fuels
and produces greenhouse gases to natural environment.
Electric vehicle (EV) has the advantages of highly efficient,
zero emissions, energy-saving, and low-noise by replacing
internal combustion engine (ICE) with electric machine. [1]
Thus, EVs attract much attentions from both academia and
industry. [2][3] Since battery is the only power source in
pure EVs, the remaining driving distance related to EV
users experiences closely rely on SOC. Compare with
other kinds of batteries, lithium batteries have advantages
of higher specific energy, longer cycle life and lower
self-discharge rate. [4] [5] Hence, many manufacturers
choose lithium batteries as the power source in their EV
978-1-5090-5319-3/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE 352
Fei Gao3
3
FEMTO-ST, CNRS, Univ.
UTBM
F-90010 Belfort Cedex,
France
Emails: fei.gao@utbm.fr
products. However, overcharge and over discharge will
cause permanently and irreversibly damage to lithium
batteries, which may even lead to potentially explosive. On
the basis of an accurate SOC, battery management system
(BMS) can help expanding lithium batterys lifespan and
ensuring its safe usage. Therefore, its is critical for BMS
to keep batteries within a reasonable SOC range. [6]
However, EVs always operate in various driving cycles,
which makes it difficult to obtain an accurate SOC.
Generally, BMS should monitor the battery current, voltage,
temperature for safety use of EV. These data have not been
sufficiently utilized to improve the accuracy of SOC
estimation. Machine learning method is recently
developing fast and is especially suitable for data analysis.
Consequently, by analyzing these data, machine learning
method is utilized in this paper for an accurate SOC.
Different kinds of methods have been proposed to
obtain an accurate SOC, among which Coulomb counting
method and OCV method are two efficiently classical SOC
estimation methods. As an open loop estimator, Coulomb
counting method [7] estimates SOC by the integration of
current with time. Thus, current errors from sensors will
accumulate, and inaccurate initial SOC will also inevitably
yield errors in the estimation process. Open circuit voltage
(OCV) has monotonic relationship with SOC. As a result,
OCV method estimates SOC on the basis of OCV-SOC
table. [8][9] Measuring OCV requires many hours even
several days waiting for the battery inner equilibrium,
which is inappropriate for most online application. Extend
Kalman filter (EKF) is frequently appeared in multiple
papers for its superior performance. On the foundation of a
closed loop structure, EKF is able to deal with unknown
initial SOC in estimation process. [10][11] However,
linearizing state space equation by Taylor series expansion
decreases its accuracy. Other similar approaches, such as
unscented Kalman filter (UKF), particle filter (PF), are too
much time consuming for online BMS applications. eigenvector is calculated in the first step, then the score matrix
[12][13] Neural network is capable of directly reflecting and loading matrix are obtained in the process. If enough
the relationship between the measured values and SOC number of dominant eigenvectors (for example, K) are
through a training process. [14] Nevertheless, an accurate received, the entire PLS is stopped and the output matrix B is
neural network based method relies heavily on the amount calculated. It is clear seen from the calculation process that
of training dataset. Collecting large numbers of dataset the matrix B contains information from both X and Y, which
makes the entire estimation process costly. makes PLS more powerful to complete the mapping from
input to output.
In this paper, partial least squares (PLS) is introduced to
online analyze the measurement data in BMS and establish After analyzing the small scale samples online with PLS,
the data driven battery model is established in this paper. The
the data driven model simultaneously. PLS is capable of
proposed data driven model is shown in Fig.1.
extracting the main information from dataset and obtaining
its inner connections between input and output in the case
of small sample scale. A mix mechanism is applied to Initialize variables
choose the best result from mathematic model and PLS E0=X,F0=Y,W=[],R=[],i=1;
model for improving the accuracy of battery modeling in
the estimating process. Model free adaptive control
(MFAC) is used to calculate the pseudo partial derivative Compute the dominant
eigenvector wi
(PPD) in order to get the dynamic linearization model of
the nonlinear system. With the calculating results from
battery model, MFAC has the advantages of adaptive
adjusting its output for an accurate SOC and can
implement SOC estimation online efficiently.
No
This paper is organized as follows. PLS based data
driven model is introduced in Section II. The entire SOC W=[W,wi], R=[R, ri]
estimation method is detailed in Section III. Experimental
test of the proposed method is shown in Section IV.
Conclusions are given in Section V.

II. DATA DRIVEN BATTERY MODEL

i>K
PLS is a multivariate statistical data analysis method,
which predicts the set of output variables by considering Yes
the correlations between response matrix and predictor
matrix. [15] On the basis of PLS, the parsimonious battery
model with reliable predictive power are expressed as the
following form: Fig.1 Flowchart of the PLS based modeling process
Y=XB+F (1)
Current
where response matrix Y is terminal voltage, predictor SOC PLS battery Terminal Voltage
matrix X is a vector including current, SOC and Temperature model
temperature, B is the coefficient matrix and F is the
residuals in this paper.
By data analysis, PLS can find components from X that Fig.2 PLS battery model
are also relevant to Y simultaneously with the constraint
that maximize the covariance cov(X,Y) of predictor and III. SOC ESTIMATION BASED ON MFAC
response. Note that X is the product of score matrix T and MFAC is firstly proposed by Z.S. Hou in 1994. [16-18]
loading matrix P. Assuming that the projection matrix is W, In MFAC, discrete-time nonlinear system is replaced by an
then T=XW. Thus, Y are expressed as: equivalent dynamic linearization model at current
= + = + = + (2) operating point of the control system.
If we know matrix B, the future value of Y are estimation Assuming that the nonlinear single input single output
by Eq.(2). Thus, the crucial problem for PLS regression is (SISO) system is expressed as following:
how to calculate B.
y( + 1) = ( ), , , ( ), , ( ) (3)
The process of PLS algorithm is shown in Fig. 1. PLS
acquires features from the variances of both X and Y as well y(k),u(k) are the input and output of the system at k,
as considering the correlations between them. The dominant respectively; f() is the unknown nonlinear system; ny, nu

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are the order of system. final accuracy of the estimated SOC is improved by the
mix of the two models. Assuming that U1 is the difference
Eq.(3) are dynamic linearization as the following form
between the output of mathematic model and terminal
in MFAC:
voltage, and U2 is the difference between the output of PLS
y( + 1) = ( ) + ( ) ( ) (4) model and terminal voltage. The mix algorithm in this
paper is simply selecting the model whose output has
Where ( ) is the PPD of the control system. Input minimum difference comparing to terminal voltage. The
and output data measured from the controlled system are mix mechanism are briefly described as following: If U1 >
used to calculate the PPD online for the dynamic model. U2, we choose mathematic model in the estimation process.
On the basis of Eq. (4), the process of MFAC is as If U2 > U1, PLS model is selected for estimating. Without
follows: increasing much computational burden, this concise
( )
mechanism help making the estimation process simple and
u( ) = ( 1) + | ( )|
( + 1) ( ) (6) effective.
( 1) IV. EXPERIMENT RESULTS
( ) = ( 1) +
+ ( 1)
Lithium polymer battery manufactured by KOKAM is
( ) ( 1) ( 1) (7) selected in this paper for testing the proposed method. The
nominal capacity is 70.0 Ah and nominal voltage is 3.7 V.
( ) = (1), if | ( )| or | ( 1)| (8) The mathematic model is established firstly as the primary
Where , are the step factor, , are the model. Battery data under constant current in Fig.3 is
weighting factor, is small positive number. measured for parameters identification of the mathematic
model. In this paper, mathematic model is used as the
It can be deduced from Eq.(6)~(8) that MFAC does not following form:
rely on the mathematical model of the controlled system.
Thus, MFAC is used to estimate SOC in this paper. = + + +
Utilizing PPD and real-time data, MFAC is able to adjust ( )+ (1 ) (9)
the parameters and structure of the controlled system
adaptively. In this paper, MFAC makes full use of the Where Vmodel is the calculating voltage of mathematic
voltage difference between battery model and real battery model, Iinput is the charging or discharging current, and r is
for correcting SOC. With the benefit of MFAC, SOC the internal resistance. E0, k0, k1, k2 and k3 are the
estimation is a closed loop structure and also insensitive to parameters of mathematic model.
initial SOC.
Due to varieties in driving habits and traffic conditions,
battery pack in EVs generally works in different driving
cycles. However, measuring battery under constant current
variation is easy and feasible in most applications.
Therefore, the mathematical battery model identified under
constant current is selected as the original model in this
paper. Afterwards, on the basis of the operating data, PLS
battery model is added to the estimation structure. The
final estimated SOC are the mix of the two models. MFAC
is chosen to calculate utilizing the terminal voltage
errors. The structure of the proposed algorithm is shown in (a) Current
Fig. 3.

U
SOC* SOC Mathematica
U1
l Battery
I
Model
Complementary model
MFAC
SOC U
I U2
PLS model
T Mix mechanism

Fig.3 Framework of the proposed method

(b) Voltage
On the foundation of the structure in Fig.3, the
mathematical model can guarantee the basic results and the

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 (c) Temperature (b) Voltage

Fig.4 Measured data from Li battery under constant discharging current

TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF MATHEMATIC MODEL

Parameter E0 r k0
Value 3.132 0.002852 9.083e-7

Parameter k1 k2 k3
Value -0.4713 0.004097 -0.05771

Using nonlinear least square method to identify the

parameters under constant current in Fig.4, the results are (c) Temperature
shown in Table I.
Fig.5 Measured data from Li battery under current variation
SOC is firstly estimated under mutative current only by
mathematic model and MFAC. Afterwards, the PLS model
is added in the process and mixed with mathematic model
to improve the estimation accuracy. Details of the testing
current, voltage and temperature are shown in Fig. 5. The
current and voltage are frequently changed, and
temperature is also increasing with usage. In order to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, it is
compared with MFAC without PLS battery model. The
initial SOC is arbitrarily set to 0.1 for testing the proposed
method in an extremely condition. Experimental results are
shown in Fig.6, Fig.7 and Fig.8.

Fig.6 Experimental results of the proposed method

(a) Current

Fig.7 The model used in the estimation process

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Fig.8 Errors of the proposed method
In Fig.6, the difference between estimated SOC and
reference is increasing when the PLS battery model is not
added, especially for the estimation results after 800s.
However, combining with PLS model, the SOC estimation
results closely follow the reference SOC during the same
period. This is because the parameters of mathematic
model are just identified under constant current as
previously described, while the parameters actually change
with temperature and SOC after operating in varying
current. In this case, mathematic model cannot guarantee
its accuracy in the estimated process. The proposed PLS
model is able to improve the modeling accuracy through
the mix mechanism in Section III. Therefore, the accuracy
of estimation result is significantly improved by adding the
complementary PLS model. Fig. 7 shows which models is
used in every step. It is clear shown in Fig. 7 that PLS
model is more frequently chosen for SOC estimation after
1000s. Errors in Fig.7 also prove that the estimation
accuracy is improved effectively by the PLS model. The
errors of MFAC with PLS battery model are obviously less
than MFAC without data driven model in Fig.8, especially
when the parameters are changed in higher temperature
and lower SOC ranges.
V. CONCLUSION
A PLS based model for improving accuracy of the
estimated SOC is proposed in this paper. MFAC, combined
with the basic mathematic model, guarantees the primary
accuracy of the estimation method. PLS model is
established and updated online with the arrival of the new
measured data in BMS, which acts as the data driven
model in estimation process. By an efficiently
computational mechanism, the proposed method mixes the
results of the two different models for accurate battery
model. With a closed loop structure, the proposed method
is insensitive to initial SOC. Experimental results prove the
proposed method can help obtaining an accurate SOC in
EV driving cycles. This paper is the initial effort for the
proposed method. The fusion mechanism and the test of
proposed method with limited samples under various
condition still need further research in our future work.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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The authors would like to thank the employees of
Stropower Company for their support. This work is supported
by the Key Program for International S&T Cooperation and
Exchange Projects of Shaanxi Province and the Seed
Foundation of Innovation and Creation for Graduate Students
in Northwestern Polytechnical University.
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