A novel active equalization method for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles

•Build an active equalization method for lithium-ion batteries.•A bidirectional transformer topology is introduced for active equalization.•The PF method is used for cell SOC estimation to eliminate drift noise of current.•The SOC based equalization algorithm is analyzed with different SOC bounds.

Cell inconsistency is inevitable due to manufacturing constraint. Therefore, cell equalization is essentially required. In this paper, we propose a novel active equalization method based on the remaining capacity of cells which is feasible for lithium-ion battery packs in electric vehicles (EVs). The cell models are established based on a combined electrochemical model of lithium-ion batteries. The remaining capacity and state-of-charge (SOC) of cells are observed at the beginning of equalization. The particle filter (PF) method is employed to estimate the cell SOCs during equalization in order to eliminate the drift noise of the current sensor. The first high-SOC cell discharge (FHCD) and first low-SOC cell charge (FLCC) equalization algorithms are proposed and compared with 1% and 3% SOC bounds, respectively. The validation experiment results have shown that the proposed algorithm is suitable for equalization of lithium-ion batteries in EVs.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide