A REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION AND ENERGY BALANCING SCHEMES IN LI-ION BATTERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Abstract

Battery management systems (BMS) play a significant role in electric vehicles. An efficient BMS can not only extend the battery life but also provide timely feedback of battery status information to a remote server. Since communication and energy balancing are crucial functions in BMS, it is of great significance to summarize the previous research in these fields for the improvement of BMS system structure optimisation and equalization circuits. The controller area network bus-based, wireless-based, and power line-based signal transmission schemes in BMS are reviewed in this paper. The advantages and limitations of these communication methods are summarised. Furthermore, various Li-ion battery-balancing topologies for energy storage systems are demonstrated in this article. Either employing resistors, capacitors, DC/DC converters for current shunting or using transformers for energy conversion among different cells, can achieve battery charge equalization. Moreover, the operating principles and charge balancing capability of these topologies are discussed.