Battery Monitoring Basics

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 Section 1 Basic Concepts

What does a battery monitor do?

How to estimate battery capacity?
Voltage lookup
Current integration
Factors affecting capacity estimation
Other functions
Safety and protection
Cell balancing
Charging support
Communication and display
Logging

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 What does a battery monitor do?

Battery Subsystem
Capacity
VPACK
CHG DSG
Vbatt estimation
ICHG Safety/protection
VCHG VDSG Charging support
comm Gas
Communication

Battery
Charger

Gauge
Load

Tbatt
and Display
IDSG Logging
Rs
Ibatt
Authentication
System Monitor Cell

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 How to estimate battery capacity?

Measure change in capacity

Voltage lookup
Coulomb counting

Develop a cell model

Circuit model
Table Lookup

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 Voltage lookup

One can tell how much water is

in a glass by reading the water
level
Accurate water level reading
mL
should only be made after the marks

water settles (no ripple, etc)

One can tell how much charge I(t)
is in a battery by reading well-
rested cell voltage
Accurate voltage should only be q (t )
made after the battery is well
rested (stops charging or V(t)

discharging)

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 OCV curve

Level OCV Curve

rises
Full charge voltage
same rate

Voltage
Level
rises same
rate End of discharge voltage

Capacitor 0% 100%
Fullness

Level rises
slower
OCV Curve
Level rises
Full charge voltage
faster
Voltage

End of discharge voltage

Battery 0% 100%
Fullness

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 OCV voltage table: DOD representation

OCV(DOD)

4300

4100

Vmax 3900
Voltage_a(DOD)

Vmin 3700
Voltage_a
3500
Poly_a(DOD)

3300

3100

2900
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

DOD

Flat Zone

DOD = Depth of Discharge

SOC = State of Charge
DOD = 100% - SOC

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 Current integration
One can also measure how
much water goes in and out
In batteries, battery capacity
changes can be monitored by
tracking the amount of
electrical charges going in/out mL
marks

q (t ) q 0 I (t ) dt
I(t)
q k q 0 t k I k

But how do you know the

q q (t )
amount of charge, 0 , already
in the battery at the start?
Voltage
How do you count charges
accurately?

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 Basic Smart Battery System

CHG DSG
VPACK Vbatt

ICHG

VCHG VDSG

Battery Model
comm Gas
Charger

Gauge Tbatt
Load

IDSG

Ibatt
Rs

qk q 0 t k I k

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 Circuit model
VOC a function of SOC
Rint is internal resistance
Rs and Cs model the short
term transient response
RL and CL model the long term
transient response
DC model
Vbatt and Ibatt are the battery
voltage and current
All parameters are function of
temperature and battery age

Transient model

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 Table lookup

Large, multi-dimensional table relating capacity to

Voltage
Current
Temperature
Aging
No cell model
Apply linear interpolation to make lookup continuous
Memory intensive

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 Factors affecting capacity estimation

PCB component accuracy

Instrumentation accuracy
Cell model fidelity
Aging
Temperature

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 PCB component accuracy

Example
Current sensing resistor Gas
Gauge
Trace length (resistance)
V (t ) I (t ) Rs

R+ R-

I (t )
Rs

V (t )
I (t )
Rs r

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 Instrumentation accuracy

ADC Resolution
Sampling rate
Voltage drift / calibration

Voltage
Noisy immunity

ADC count

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 Battery model fidelity

Steady-state (DC)
Transient (AC)
Capacity degradation DC model
Aging
Overcharge

Transient model

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 Model parameter extraction

Extract battery model parameter values using actual

collected battery data
Open circuit voltage (OCV)
Transient parameters (RC)
DC parameters (Ri)
Least square minimization
Extraction process can be hard and time consuming

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 Temperature

Temperature is important for

Capacity estimation
Safety
Charging control
Temperature impacts model
parameters
Resistance
Capacitance
OCV
Max capacity

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 Safety
High operating temperature

Accelerates cell degradation

Heat Flow (W/g)

Thermal runaway and explosion OCV = 4.3 V
Thermal
LiCoO2 Cathode reacts with
Runaway
electrolyte at 175C with 4.3 V

Cathode coatings help considerably 100 125 150 175 200 225 250
Temperature (C)
LiFePO4 shows huge improvement!
Thermal runaway is > 350C

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 Cell Safety

Safety Elements
Pressure relief valve
PTC element
Aluminum or steel case
Polyolefin separator
Low melting point
(135 to 165C)
Porosity is lost as melting
point is approached
Stops Li-Ion flow and shuts
down the cell
Recent incidents traced to
metal particles that pollutes the
cells and creates microshorts

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 Safety and protection

Short circuit Trip-Over

Alert Trip Trip
Over/under
(charge/discharge) Trip
current Margin
(level)
Trip
Level

Over/under voltage
Over temperature time
FET failure Trip Margin
(time)

Fuse failure Trip-Under

Alert Trip Trip
Communication failure
Lock-up Trip
Level
Flash failure
Trip
Margin
(level)
ESD
Cell imbalance time
Trip Margin
(time)

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 Overcurrent Protection Details

B a tte ry
C u rre n t

AFE
AFE
S C P (C H G a n d D S G ) H a r d w a r e P r o te c tio n
T u rn O ff F E T s
R e c o v e r a b le
G a s -G a u g e IC
S o ftw a re C o n tro l
AFE
B o th C H G a n d D S G
O C P (D S G O n ly )
(1 - s U p d a t e I n t e r v a l )
T u rn O ff F E T s
R e c o v e r a b le
2 n d -L e v e l S a fe ty O C P
(B lo w C h e m ic a l F u s e )
P e rm a n e n t 1 s t-L e v e l O C P
(2 n d T ie r ) 1 s t-L e v e l O C P
T u rn O ff F E T s (1 s t T i e r )
R e c o v e r a b le
T u rn O ff F E T s
R e c o v e r a b le

T im e

AFE SCP CHG AFE O CP S a f e t y O C P C H G / O C P ( 2 n d T i e r ) O C P (1 s t T i e r )

/D S G T im e D S G T im e D S G T im e C H G /D S G T im e C H G /D S G T im e
0 to ~ 9 1 5 s 1 to ~ 3 1 m s 1 to ~ 6 0 s 1 to ~ 6 0 s 1 to ~ 6 0 s

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 Basic Battery-Pack Electronics
Discharge MOSFET Charge
MOSFET
Chemical Fuse Q1 Q2
Pack+

Gas Gauge IC AFE

SMD LDO Second
SMBus Overvoltage OCP
SMC Undervoltage Safety
Cell
Temp Sensing I2C Balancing OVP IC
RT bq20z90 bq29330 bq29412
Voltage ADC

Rs Sense
Current ADC Resistor
Pack

Measurement: Current, voltage, and temperature

bq20zxx gas gauge : Remaining capacity, run time, health condition
Analog front end (AFE)
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 JEITA/BAJ Guidelines for Notebook

Do not charge if T< 0C or T> 50C

Minimize temperature variation among cells
How do we collect temperature information?

Upper-Limit Charge Current

Upper-Limit Voltage: 4.25 V

No Charge
4.20 V
No Charge

4.15 V
Safe Region

T1 T2 T5 T6 T3 T4
(100C) (450C)
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 Why Are Battery Packs Still Failing?

Heat Imbalance
Space-limited design
causes local heat imbalance

Cell degradation
accelerated >10C
Temperature Profile
along Section Line
Variation
Between
Leads to cell imbalance Cells

Single/insufficient thermal
sensor(s) compromise
safety
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 Cell Balancing
Battery cells voltages can get out of balance, which
could lead to over charge at a cell even though the
overall pack voltage is acceptable.

Cell balance can be achieved through current

bypass or cross-cell charge pumping

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 Passive Cell Balancing: Simplest Form

Simple, voltage based

Stops charging when
any cell hits VOV
threshold
V
Resistive bypassing D iff_ E n d

turns on VO V
VO VO
Charge resumes when V VH
C e ll A
cell A voltage drops to
safe threshold
V D iff_ S ta r t C e ll B

ta tb tc td te tf
bq77PL900, 5 to 10 series-cell Li-Ion
battery-pack protector for power tools
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 Fast Passive Cell Balancing

Needed for high-power

PACK +
packs, where cell self-
discharge overpowers
internal balancing
1 k

R1
Fast cell balancing
R4
Cell 2
strength is 10x ~ 20x
Q2
1 k higher
R2 bq2084/
R4 bq20zxx
Cell 1
Q2 VCell
1 k
RDS(on) Internal CB ICB
R3
R DS(on)
R
VCell
Fast CB ICB
R4
Where R4 << RDS(on)
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 Charging support

Inform battery charger proper charging voltage and

current
Conform to specification (e.g., JEITA)
Reduce charge time
Extend battery life by:
Avoid overcharging
Precharging depleted and deeply discharged cells

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 Communication and Display

Communication
To the System or Charger
Industry specification

Display
LED, LCD
Capacity indication
Fault indication

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 Logging

Works like an airplane blackbox

recorder
Record important lifetime
information
Max/min voltage
Max/min current
Max/min temperature
Record important data for failure
analysis
Reset count
Cycle count
Excessive flash wear

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 Section 2

Battery Fuel Gauging:

CEDV & Z-track

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 Basic Vocabulary Review
Current
Capacity
C-rate [mA]
Design Capacity [mAh]
Qmax, Chemical Capacity [mAh] Coulomb Counting
FCC, Usable Capacity [mAh]
RM, Remaining Capacity [mAh]
RSOC [%]
DOD [%]
DOD0, DOD1 [%]
q (t ) q 0 I (t ) dt
Voltages
OCV [mV]
OCV(DOD) [mV]
EDV [mV]
EDV 2 [mV]
EDV 0 [mV]
CEDV [mV]

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 How Much Capacity is Really Available?

Voltage, V
4.5
Open circuit voltage (OCV)
4.0

I RBAT
3.5

EDV
3.0

0 1 2 3 4 6
Capacity, Ah
Usable capacity : FCC
Full chemical capacity: Qmax
External battery voltage (blue curve) V = V0CV I RBAT
Higher C-rate EDV is reached earlier (higher I RBAT)
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 What Does A Fuel Gauge Do?

Which route is the battery taking?

4.2V Suppose What is the remaining
we are capacity at current load?
here What is the State of charge
(SOC)?
How long can the battery
run?

3V 0%

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 Current Integration Based Fuel-gauging
Battery is fully charged
During discharge capacity
is integrated
4.2V State of charge (SOC) at
each moment is RM/FCC
FCC is updated every
time full discharge occurs

Q
0% RM = FCC - Q
3V
FCC
SOC = RM/FCC

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 Learning Before Fully Discharged
fixed voltage thresholds
It is too late to learn
when 0% capacity is
reached Learning
FCC before 0%
4.2V
We can set voltage
threshold that
correspond to given
7% percentage of
EDV2 3% remaining capacity
EDV1
0%
EDV0 However, true voltage
corresponding to 7%
FCC depends on current
and temperature

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 Learning before fully discharged with
current and temperature compensation
CEDV
CEDV Model: Modeling last part of
Predict V(SOC) under any discharge allows to
OCV current and temperature calculate function
4.2V V(SOC, I, T)

Substituting SOC=7%
allows to calculate in
EDV2 (I1) real time CEDV2
threshold that
EDV2 (I2) corresponds to 7%
capacity at any current
and temperature

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 CEDV Model Visualization
OCV curve defined
Voltage by EMF, C0
OCV corrected by
I*R (R is defined by
R0, R1, T0)
I*R

Further correction
by low
temperature (TC)

Actual battery
voltage curve
Reserve Cap: C1
shifts fit curve
Battery Low laterally

3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9%
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 CEDV Formula

CEDV = CV - I*[EDVR0/4096]*[1 + EDVR1*Cact/16384]*

[1 EDVT0*(10T - 10Tadj)/(256*65536)]*[1+(CC*EDVA0)/(4*65536)] * age

Where:
CV = EMF*[1 EDVC0*(10T)*log(Cact)/(256*65536)]
Cact = 256/(2.56*RSOC + EDVC1) 1 for (2.56*RSOC + EDVC1) > 0
Cact = 255 for (2.56*RSOC + EDVC1) = 0
EDVC1 = 2.56 * Residual Capacity (%) + Curve Fit factor
Tadj = EDVTC*(296-T) for T< 296oK and Tadj < T
Tadj = 0 for T > 296 oK and Tadj max value = T
age = 1 + 8 * CycleCount * A0 / 65536.

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 Impedance Track Fuel Gauging

Combine advantages of voltage correlation and coulomb

counting methods
State of charge (SOC) update:
Read fully relaxed voltage to determine initial SOC and capacity
decay due to self-discharge
Use current integration when under load
Parameters learning on-the-fly:
Learn impedance during discharge
Learn total capacity Qmax without full charge or discharge
Adapt to spiky loads (delta voltage)
Usable capacity learning:
Calculate remaining run-time at typical load by simulating voltage
profile do not have to pass 7% knee point

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 Current Direction Thresholds and Delays

1 1. CHG relaxation timed

2. Enter RELAX mode
2 3. Start discharging
3 7
4. Enter DSG mode
6 5. DSG relaxation timed
6. Enter RELAX mode
5
7. Start charging
8. Enter CHG mode
4

Example of the Algorithm Operation Mode Changes With Varying SBS.Current( )

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 What is Impedance Track?
1. Chemistry table in Data Flash:
10,000 foot View
OCV = f (dod)
dod = g (OCV)

2. Impedance learning during discharge:

R = OCV V
I
3. Update Max Chemical Capacity for each cell
Qmax = PassedCharge / (SOC1 SOC2)

4. Temperature modeling allows for temperature-compensated

impedance to be used in calculating remaining capacity and
FCC

5. Run periodic simulation to predict Remaining and Full

Capacity

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 Close OCV profile for the Same Base-
Electrode Chemistry

4.2
OCV profiles close for all
tested manufacturers

3.93
Most voltage deviations from
average are below 5mV
Voltage, V

Average DOD prediction

3.67 error based on average
voltage/DOD dependence is
below 1.5%

3.4
Same OCV database can be
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 used with batteries produced
DOD, fraction by different manufacturers as
Manufacturer A long as base chemistry is
B same
C
D
E
Generic database allows
4 significant simplification of
fuel-gauge implementation at
2.67 user side
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 Resistance Update
400

300
Ra

200

100

Before Update
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

dod
Discharge direction

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 Ra Table: Interpolation and Scaling Operation

R = (OCV V) / Avg Current.

Averaging method is selectable
Resistance updates require Ra_old Ra_new

updating 15 values for each cell

A new resistance measurement
represents the resistance at an
exact grid point. Exact value

Grid 14
m: Last visited grid
Grid 0

k: Present grid
found by interpolation
All 15 grid points are
ratiometrically updated from any
valid gridpoint measurement.
Changes are weighted
according to confidence in Step 1

accuracy Interpolation
Step 2
Scale After
Step 3
Scale Before

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 Timing of Qmax Update

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 FCC Learning
4
1.3 10
8000
4
1.2 10
7800
4
1.1 10
FCC, mAh

V, mV
7600 4
1 10

7400 9000

7200 8000
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

DOD
SM B FCC
true FCC
Ra grids
Voltage

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 Modeling temperature

Based on a heating / cooling model **

Heating is from the internal resistance
Cooling is from heat transfer to the environment,
i.e.,
How many thermistors?
T Ta

m := cell mass hc := heat transfer coef Ta := ambient temp

cp := specific heat A := cell surface area

dT 1
Ri Vbatt Voc I batt Ri hc A T Ta
2
m cp I batt
2

dt R

Heating Cooling
** Dynamic Lithium-Ion Battery Model for System Simulation, L. Gao, S. Liu and R. A. Dougal, IEEE Transaction on Components and Packaging
Technologies, vol. 25, no. 3, September 2002.

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 RemCap Simulation (concept)

Start of discharge

V
I*R
(loaded) OCV

V > 250mV

EDV

Vterm
Time

Q/2

I Q/4

Qstart RsvCap
Q Q . . . . . Q

Time
RemCap

Constant Load Example

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 Z-track Accuracy in Battery Cycling Test
Error is shown at
1 10%, 5% and 3%
Remaining Capacity Error, %

points of discharge
0.5
curve
0
For all 3 cases, error
0.5 stays below 1%
during entire 250
1
cycles
1.5
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
It can be seen that
Cycle Number error somewhat
error at 10% decreases from 10 to
error at 5% 3% due to adaptive
error at 3%
nature of IT algorithm

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 CEDV, Impedance Track Comparison
Property CEDV Impedance Track

Worst error new, learned +/-2% +/-1%

Worst error aged, learned +30% (+/- 15% with age +/-2%
data)
Data collection 3 temperatures, 2 rates, Chemistry selection test,
Fitting to obtain Optimization cycle
parameters. 1 week
2 weeks
Instruction flash small large
Voltage accuracy 20mV/pack 3mV/pack
requirement
State of charge initialization No Yes
(host side requirement)

FCC temperature No (with rare exceptions) Yes

compensation

FCC rate compensation No (with rare exceptions) Yes

Learning cycle in production required Not required

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