Estimating the state of charge of MH-Ni batteries by measuring their stable internal pressure

Nickel metal hydride (MH-Ni) batteries are widely used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Estimating a battery's state of charge (SOC) remains challenging in practical applications, and it is also the core technology. Because MH-Ni batteries exhibit high rates of self-discharge and have flat and broad charge-discharge voltage plateaus, the estimation of their SOC through their voltage, current, internal resistance, and temperature is not accurate and has a large cumulative error. In this study, a new method for estimating SOC based on battery's stable internal pressure is proposed using the one-to-one correspondence between the hydrogen equilibrium pressure and the reversible hydrogen-storage capacity described by the pressure-concentration-isotherm (P-C-T) curves of hydrogen storage alloys. The actual SOC and the stable internal pressure of the battery have a one-to-one correspondence after the battery was stored at different temperatures and SOCs, and this relationship is maintained after different cycling number and after four years of storage.