An Experimental Study on the Cell Balancing Parameters for Faulty Cell Detection in a Battery Module

Along with global efforts to reduce the carbon footprint, electrification of powertrains is occurring in various applications, certainly including transportation systems. One of the most important components is an electric energy storage system, i.e., a battery pack. Regardless of battery form factors, such as cylindrical, pouch and prismatic type, it is critical to maintain the safety of the battery module/pack by monitoring the conditions of each and every battery cell of the battery pack. It becomes even more critical as the battery cells are used over many charging and discharging cycles. Thermal runaways of the battery packs can even be triggered by a single faulty battery cell which degrades in an unexpected manner and speed compared to the neighboring battery cells, resulting in extreme fire hazards. Typically, this faulty cell with an abnormally increased internal resistance can be detected using a voltage sensor or a temperature sensor. However, in this study, instead of depending on those sensors, activities of cell balancing switching devices are used to identify a degraded cell compared to other cells in a relative manner. A currently proposed faulty cell detection algorithm was developed through multiple simulations with Matlab Simulink®, then, a simple BMS prototype was built and tested as a proof of concept.