Battery balancing method

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a battery pack voltage equalization method, and more particularly, to a passive balancing method for battery packs.

2. Description of Related Art

Rechargeable batteries have now been widely used to provide electrical power to a variety of electronic products. The terminal voltage or capacity of a signal battery (cell) is limited. A battery pack which is composed by a plurality of rechargeable battery cells connected in series is used in electronics such as laptops to increase the output voltage and charge capacity. The charging/discharging capacity, charging conversion efficiency, or initial capacity of each battery cell within the same battery pack could be inconsistent to each other. Therefore, after repeated charging and discharging processes in a long term, the discrepancies among each battery cell may be amplified, so that the performance of the battery pack becomes more and more limited by battery cells with poor characteristics.

In order to increase the lifetime of the battery pack and reduce the above-mentioned problem, a battery equalization mechanism is provided in many battery management systems, such as a passive balancing method, which takes the lowest voltage among all of the battery cells of the battery pack as a reference voltage and consuming the electricity of batteries with voltage higher than the reference voltage by resistor into heat for dissipating, so that each battery cell of the battery pack may initiate to charge from the same voltage, so as to solve the issues of that battery cells with poor characteristics may not be fully charged.

However, the conventional passive battery balancing method does not consider the discrepancies of maximum discharging/charging capacities among each of the battery cells, yet take the same reference voltage to determine the balancing criteria for different battery cells. The conventional method often causes the battery cells with better performance in the battery pack to be limited by the battery cells with poor performance during the equalization process. Moreover, such method doesn't take the battery aging factor into consideration.

In view of the aforementioned issues, the present invention provides a battery balancing method which categorizes each battery cell in a battery pack according to different characteristics and then performs battery balancing with respect to each category, thereby equalizing the charging and discharging process more efficiently, improving the electricity storage capability of the battery pack, and extending the lifetime of the battery pack.

To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the present invention provides a battery balancing method for a battery pack, wherein the battery pack is composed by a plurality of rechargeable battery cells, the steps of the method includes: categorizing the plurality of battery cells into a first subgroup and a second subgroup, wherein, an over voltage count number of each battery cell already reached an over voltage protection point belonged to the first subgroup is larger than zero, and the over voltage count number of each battery cell belonged to the second subgroup equals to zero. As the battery pack is in charging, the battery cells of the second subgroup perform voltage equalization in response to a minimum voltage detected from the battery cells of the second subgroup firstly. And the voltages of the battery cells of the first subgroup decrease to be lower than the minimum voltage in response to the over voltage count number and a voltage constant respectively so as to perform voltage equalization. While the either one of battery cells in the battery pack have reached the over voltage protection point in a charging mode, the over voltage count number in accordance with the battery cells already reached the over voltage protection point is accumulated and the charging procedure of the battery pack is discontinued; conversely, while all of the battery cells in the battery pack have not yet reached the over voltage protection point, it continues to charge the battery cells till all of the battery cells are fully charged. Then, it discontinues charging the battery pack.

To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the present invention further provides another battery balancing method for a battery pack, wherein the battery pack includes a plurality of rechargeable battery cells. The method initiates to charge the battery pack and categorizes the plurality of battery cells into a first subgroup and a second subgroup. Each battery cell in the first subgroup has an over voltage count number that records the times of the battery cells reaching an over voltage protection point. A minimum voltage of the battery cells in the second subgroup is detected. Then the voltage of each battery cell in the first subgroup is decreased to a buck voltage lower than the minimum voltage of the second subgroup. While any cell in the first group reaches the over voltage protection point again during the charging procedure, the over voltage count numbers for the particular battery cells already reached the over voltage protection point are accumulated and then the charging procedure is terminated.

In order to further understand the techniques, means and effects the present invention, the following detailed description and included drawings are hereby referred, such that, through which, the purposes, features and aspects of the present invention may be thoroughly and concretely appreciated; however, the included drawings are provided solely for reference and illustration, without any intention to be used for limiting the present invention.

FIG. 1 illustrates a charging flowchart of a first embodiment of the battery balancing method in accordance with certain aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a discharging flowchart of the first embodiment of the battery balancing method in accordance with certain aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a charging flowchart of a second embodiment of the battery balancing method in accordance with certain aspects of the present invention; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a discharging flowchart of the second embodiment of the battery balancing method in accordance with certain aspects of the present invention.

The present invention primarily provides a battery balancing method suitable for use for a discharging and charging controller coupled to a battery pack, wherein the controller includes a monitoring circuit for monitoring each battery cell state in the battery pack and a micro-controller for controlling discharging, charging, and equalization of each battery cell. A variety of preferred embodiment illustrated as following are implemented by the controller.

First, referring to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 , in which a flowchart of a first embodiment of the battery balancing method for a battery pack according to the present invention is demonstrated. Because the battery pack performs voltage equalization by repeating discharge and charge procedures, FIG. 1 is used to illustrate charging procedures in accordance with the first embodiment and FIG. 2 is used to illustrate discharging procedures.

As shown in FIG. 1 , each battery cell in the battery pack is categorized into a first subgroup and a second subgroup in step S 101 in response to charging speeds; a specific threshold for classification is determined with respect to an over voltage count number of each battery cell. The over voltage count number represents how many times has the battery cell ever reached an over voltage protection point (OVP point) in charging. A portion of battery cells in the battery pack are charged faster than other battery cells. Whereas the portion of battery cells with higher charging speed are done charging, the other battery cells are not yet charged to a predetermined operating voltage. Thus, the battery pack maintains in a charging mode, so that the portion of battery cells which are done charging increase its' voltages until the voltages reach to the over voltage protection point which is set to protect battery components. In the embodiment, the over voltage count numbers in accordance with the battery cells which are categorized into the first subgroup exceed zero and the over voltage count number of the battery cells of the second subgroup equal to zero. The over voltage protection point is a maximum threshold voltage associated with the battery cells in charging. As any one of the battery cells in the battery pack reaches the over voltage protection point, it represents that the voltage of the specific battery cell exceeds other battery cells and has reached the maximum threshold voltage. Therefore even though other battery cells of the battery pack are not yet fully charged, the battery pack must discontinue to charge, thereby preventing from damaging the specific battery cell already reached the over voltage protection point. Consequently, the implementation of the aforementioned protection mechanism wastes the left over charge storage capacity of the other battery cells which are not yet fully charged accordingly.

The battery cells of the two subgroups after categorization initiate to charge based on different voltages, wherein the second subgroup takes a minimum voltage as a benchmark voltage among the plurality of battery cells, such that each battery cell of the second subgroup in charging operations performs passive voltage equalization with respect to the minimum voltage so as to charge equally.

Yet the battery cells in the first subgroup have records related to that the battery cells have reached the over voltage point earlier than other battery cells in the prior charging operations. In other words, the voltages of the battery cells in the first subgroup increase faster than other battery cells which have not yet reached the over voltage protection point during the same charging period. Therefore, in the embodiment, adjusting charging standard points of the battery cells by reducing the benchmark voltages of the battery cells of the first subgroup to perform charging is applied herein.

The aforementioned method is applicable to adjust the voltage of each battery cell in the first subgroup to a buck voltage lower than the minimum voltage of the second subgroup by adjusting down a product of a voltage constant associated with the charging benchmark voltage of the battery cells in the first subgroup multiplying the recorded over voltage count number of each battery cell of the first subgroup. Then during charging, the adjusted buck voltage of each battery cell in accordance with the first subgroup is taken as the benchmark voltage to perform passive voltage equalization in step S 103 . Thus, because the over voltage count numbers of the battery cells in the first subgroup are applied as multiples for lowering the voltages thereof, it is easy to conclude that the larger the over voltage count number of each battery cell is, the larger the reduction magnitude of each battery cell in voltage is, and the lower the buck voltage is, in the prior charging operations.

After the step S 103 of setting the charging benchmark voltages in accordance with the battery cells of the first subgroup and the second subgroup respectively, it is necessary to further determine whether any of battery cells have reached the over voltage protection point before the other battery cells reached to the operating voltage in step S 105 during charging operation of the battery pack. The above-mentioned battery cells already reached the over voltage protection point may be any one of that in the first subgroup or the second subgroup. When the situation occurs for any one of battery cells to reach the over voltage protection point in charging, the over voltage count number of the specific battery cell reached the over voltage protection point is accumulated by 1 in step S 107 and the battery pack discontinue to charge in step S 111 , thereby preventing from damaging the specific battery cell reached the over voltage protection point.

On the other hand, if there is no battery cell has ever reached the over voltage protection point before the other battery cells not yet reached the operation voltage with respect to the determination result in step S 105 , it represents that each battery cell in the battery pack in the effects of the passive charge balancing, receives the electrical power equally to increase its voltage. Under the situation, each battery cell performs charging until all of the battery cells in the battery pack are done charging in step S 109 . It also means that the battery pack may stop the charging operations after the battery cells of that all reach the predetermined operation voltage in step S 111 , thereby completing charging procedures of the battery pack steadily and charging each battery cell equally.

The discharging procedures as shown in FIG. 2 perform after the charging procedures shown in FIG. 1 . After the battery pack is done charging, the battery pack is usually be applied to an electronic device to perform discharging in step S 301 , i.e. supplying electrical power. During the discharging operations of the battery pack, it is necessary to determine whether any of battery cells of the battery pack have reached an under voltage protection point earlier than other battery cells which are not discharged completely in step S 303 . The under voltage protection point is a minimum threshold voltage associated with the battery cells in discharging. As any one of the battery cells in the battery pack discharges so that the voltage of that reduces to the under voltage protection point, discharging operations must be terminated so as to prevent from damaging the battery cell.

If there are battery cells reached the under voltage protection point during discharging, it must determine whether the battery cells belong to the first subgroup in step S 305 . In other words, the specific battery cells reduced the charging benchmark voltages thereof because the specific battery cells have reached the over voltage protection point during the charging operations. If the battery cells reached the under voltage protection point are belonged to the first subgroup, it may represents that the charging benchmark voltages were reduced too low during the charging operations, such that the battery cells with faster discharging speeds reach to the under voltage protection point before the other battery cells during the discharging operations. Under the situation, the over voltage count numbers of the battery cells already reached the under voltage protection point is lessened in step S 307 , so that the reduction magnitudes of the battery cell in voltage are reduced for next charging operations and then discontinue to discharge in step S 309 ; conversely, if the battery cells which reached to the under voltage protection point are belonged to the second subgroup, it represents that the voltage of the battery cells in the battery pack approach a minimum limit under normal discharging operations, and then terminate the discharging operations immediately.

After the step S 303 , if the determination result shows there is no battery cell reached the under voltage protection point during the discharging operations and it represents that each batter cell of the battery pack is discharging in a normal speed, the battery pack continue discharging until all of the battery cells in the battery pack are done discharging in step S 309 , thereby terminating the discharging operations in step S 311 .

As per the aforementioned descriptions, if the battery cells belong to the first subgroup in discharging, reach the under voltage protection point earlier than the other battery cells, it represent that the buck voltages of the battery cells were adjusted too low during the previous charging operations. Therefore, during the discharging operations, while the battery cells reached the under voltage protection point are determined to belong to the first subgroup, it must not only lessen the over voltage count numbers thereof, but also further tag the battery cells reached the under voltage protection point, so as to reduce the reduction magnitudes of the back voltages associated with the battery cells for next charging operations.

In addition, as the battery cells of the first subgroup during the charging operation are determined to reach the over voltage protection point again (step S 105 in FIG. 1 ) and the battery cells have the tags of reaching the under voltage protection point in the previous discharging operations, it represents the battery cells are aged and the service life of the battery cells may be exhausted due to charging and discharging too many times. The voltages of the aging battery cells may not only decrease fast in discharging but also increase fast in charging. Under the above-mentioned situation, the step of accumulating is not executed, yet the step of discontinuing discharging is performed directly for preventing to take away the possibility for the aging battery cells to be charged completely.

Finally, referring to FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 , in which a flowchart of a second embodiment of the battery balancing method according to the present invention is demonstrated. FIG. 3 is used to illustrate charging procedures of a battery pack in accordance with the voltage equalization and FIG. 4 is used to illustrate discharging procedures of the battery pack.

As shown in FIG. 3 , first a plurality of battery cells included in the battery pack starts to charge one by one by the discharging and charging controller in step S 501 . each battery cell in the battery pack has an over voltage count number for recording how many time has each battery cell in the whole battery pack ever reached the over voltage protection point before other battery cells reach a predetermined operation voltage during the repeated discharging and charging operations. The over voltage count number may be implemented by a monitoring circuit or a micro-controller of a battery pack charge balancing circuit. In order to allow each batter cell in the battery pack has opportunities to reach the operation voltage in charging, not discontinue charging other battery cells which are not yet completed charged due to either one of the battery cells has already reached a charging threshold voltage, the battery cells of the battery pack are divided into a first subgroup with the over voltage count numbers greater than zero and into a second subgroup with the over voltage count numbers as zero in the preferred embodiment in step S 503 . In other words, the battery cells divided into the first subgroup are all reached the over voltage protection point and the battery cells divided into the second subgroup have not reached the over voltage protection point. For instance, there are 6 battery cells connected in series in the battery pack, named as A, B, C, D, E, and F respectively, wherein the battery cells A,B, and C belong to the first subgroup and the battery cells D, E, and F belong to the second subgroup.

After the classification, first identifying the minimum voltage from the battery cells in the second subgroup in step S 505 , e.g. the initial voltages of the battery cells D, E, and F are 2.7 V, 2.5 V, and 2.8 V respectively before charging operations, wherein the minimum voltage is the battery cell E of 2.5 V. The minimum voltage is a benchmark value for each battery cell to perform voltage equalization in charging. After identifying the minimum voltage, the micro-controller may control each battery cell to determine whether each batter cell belongs to the second subgroup in step S 507 . If the battery cells belong to the second subgroup, the battery cell may charge based on the minimum voltage as the benchmark voltages for the battery cells to perform voltage equalization in step S 509 .

For instance, as the micro-controller determines the battery cells D, E, and F are belonged to the second subgroup with respect to the minimum voltage of 2.5 V respectively, the battery cells A and F may perform passive type voltage equalization. It also means during the charging operations for the battery cells D, E, and F, additional electrical energy for the battery cells D, E, and F may be converted into heat energy for dissipation thru the resistance element, e.g. resistors, gradually, thereby reducing the voltage discrepancy between the battery cell D and D and preventing as both battery cells D and F all charged to the predetermined operating voltage, e.g. 3.3 V, the battery cell E is not yet reached the operating voltage.

Alternatively, if the micro-controller determine the other battery cells belonged to the first subgroup, e.g. the above-mentioned battery cells A, B, and C, the battery cells in the prior charging operations all have reached the over voltage protection point. Consequently, if the same voltage equalization mechanism is applied to charge the battery cells in the first and the second subgroup, it may conclude that before the voltages of the battery cells included in the second subgroup return to the operating voltage, the battery pack may stop charging because any one of the battery cells in the first subgroup have already reached the over voltage protection point, so that the battery cells in the second subgroup may have no opportunity to be charged to the operating voltage. As a result, in the embodiment, the technical proposal is to first reduce the benchmark voltages of the battery cells of the first subgroup, and then increase the voltage difference among the battery cells in the first and the second subgroups, thereby the battery cells in the first subgroup is required to spend more time to reach the effect of charging to the operation voltage, so that the battery cells in the second subgroup may have opportunities to be charged completely.

Therefore, as the micro-controller determine the battery cells are belonged to the first subgroup, it is necessary to further determine whether the voltages of the battery cells in the first subgroup before charging is higher than the minimum voltage identified from the second subgroup in step S 511 , i.e. 2.5 V; if the either one of the battery cells of the first subgroup has higher voltage than the minimum voltage, the voltage of the specific battery cell discharges to the buck voltage lower than the minimum voltage first and then continue to charge in step S 513 . For example, the battery cell A, B, and C have initial voltages of 3V, 2.4 V, and 2.8V, respectively, wherein the battery cells A and C have the voltages level higher than the minimum voltage, therefore, it is required to adjust lower the voltages of the battery cells A and C, respectively. The adjusting method is adapted to take a product of the over voltage count number of the battery cell and a voltage constant design by a designer in the preferred embodiment to perform adjustment, wherein the aforementioned voltage constant is a voltage unit of the buck voltage, e.g. 10 mV. For instance, the over voltage count numbers of the battery cells A and C are 3 and 2 respectively, the micro-controller may adjust the voltages of the battery cells A and C to 30 mV and 20 mV lower then the minimum voltage, respectively; the buck voltage of the battery cells A and C are 2.47 V and 2.48 V respectively after performing adjustment.

After the voltages of the battery cells in the first subgroup higher than the minimum voltage of the second subgroup have been adjusted to the buck voltage, each battery cell in the first subgroup also start to change in response to the benchmark voltages respectively. As per the aforementioned specifications, the benchmark voltage associated with each battery cell of the first subgroup after adjusting is not identical, e.g. the benchmark voltages of the battery cells from A to C are 2.47 V, 2.4 V, and 2.48 V, respectively. Accordingly, it's not the same as the battery cells of the second subgroup which take the minimum voltage as the general benchmark voltage.

Next, it is still required to monitor whether the battery cells of the first subgroup reached the over voltage protection point again during the charging operations in step S 515 . Even though the battery cells of the first subgroup adjusted the voltages thereof, they still reach the over voltage protection point, e.g. 3.7 V again before other battery cells reach to the operating voltage, it may represent the buck voltages of the battery cells are still too high, so that it is required to further determine whether the battery cells that reached the over voltage protection point again were tagged to represent that they have reached the under voltage protection point in the prior discharging operations in step S 517 . If the result is yes, it may represent that the battery cells are aged with faster charging and discharging speeds; otherwise, it may represent that the buck voltages of the battery cells were adjusted downward too much, so that the battery cells are not able to store charges normally. As per the situation mentioned above, though the battery cells reach the over voltage protection point again, the micro-controller does not accumulate the over voltage count number and merely terminate to charge the battery pack in step S 523 . However, if after the voltages associated with the battery cells of the first subgroup are adjusted, they have reached the over voltage protection point again during the charging operation in step S 515 , and they have no record showing that they have ever reached the under voltage protection point during the discharging operations in step S 517 , the micro-controller accumulate the over voltage count number of the battery cells by 1 in step S 519 and then discontinue to charge each battery cell in step S 523 . For instance, the battery cell A reached the over voltage protection point after being decreasing the voltage and it have no record showing the battery cell A has ever reached the under voltage protection value, the over voltage count number accumulates from 3 to 4 by adding 1. As the battery pack performs charging operations next time, and the minimum voltage value is still 2.5 V, the buck voltage of the battery cell A is reduced to 2.46 V.

Additionally, after the battery cells D, E, and F of the second subgroup perform voltage equalization in response to the minimum voltage in step S 509 , if any one of the battery cells D, E, and F of the first subgroup reach the over voltage protection point, e.g. the battery cell D, before other battery cells complete charging, the over voltage count number of the battery cell D is accumulated, i.e. from 0 to 1, and terminate the charging operations for all of the battery cells of the battery pack. As such, as the battery pack prepares to perform charging operations next time, the battery cell D divided into the second subgroup initially, may be categorized into the first subgroup and performs charging operation from step S 511 , and so far and so forth.

Moreover, the discharging operations as shown in FIG. 4 are followed after the charging operations shown in FIG. 3 , or after the discharging operations is completed, the charging operations in FIG. 3 are then in processing. At the start of charging operations, the discharging and charging controller charges the plurality of battery cells of the battery pack one by one in step S 701 ; and it is necessary to determine whether any battery cells reach the under voltage protection point first in step S 703 , i.e. the minimum threshold voltage in discharging, e.g. 2 V. If there is no battery cell ever reached the under voltage protection point, the monitoring circuit further determines whether the battery cells in the battery pack are discharged completely in step S 705 . If the monitoring circuit already determines the battery cells are discharged completely, then stop to discharge in step S 713 and wait till the battery pack performs the charging operations shown in FIG. 3 ; otherwise, if the battery cells in the battery pack are not yet discharged completely, the discharging and charging controller continues to charge and return to the step S 703 to determine whether any one of battery cells reaches the under voltage protection point.

If there are specific battery cells which reached the under voltage protection point before the other battery cells are completed discharging during the discharging operations, it first tags the specific battery cells in step S 707 and then determines whether the tagged battery cells belong to the first subgroup in step S 709 . The objective of the step is corresponding with the step S 517 in FIG. 3 to determine whether the battery cells of the first subgroup have a charging benchmark voltage which is reduced too much at the start of charging operations. Therefore, if the battery cells which reached the under voltage protection are indeed belonged to the first group, after it lessens the over voltage count number in step S 711 , stop discharging the battery pack in step S 713 .

Referring to the example of FIG. 3 , if the battery cell C first reaches the under voltage protection point, it represents in the previous charging operations the buck voltage of the battery cell C was reduced too much. Though it prevents the battery cell C reaches again the over voltage protection point, it reaches to the under voltage protection point easily. For example, at the start of discharging operations, the over voltage protection point of 3.7 V is reduced to the operation voltage of 3.3 V. During the same operating time, the left over voltage after discharging might change from 3.8 V to the under voltage protection point of 2 V rapidly. Thus, in order to equalize the over voltage and under voltage situations, the micro-controller first changes the over voltage count number from 2 to 1. As such, when the battery pack is charging next time, the reduction magnitude of the charging benchmark voltage of the battery cell C is reduced, and the voltage after charging may be controlled between the operation voltage and the over voltage protection point. After next discharging operations, the possibility for the voltage in accordance with the battery cell C to be too low may be prevented greatly.

Finally, according to the determination result in step S 709 , if the battery cells which reached the under voltage protection point are not belonged to the first subgroup, i.e. belonged to the second subgroup, stop to discharge the battery pack directly in step S 713 .

In the aspects of the aforementioned embodiments, a battery balancing mechanism for a battery pack is provided according to the technical characteristics of the present invention. Each battery cell of the battery pack is categorized and is adapted for different control voltage means with respect to different categorizations, so that it solves the unbalancing charge and discharge issues for battery cells, enhances the charge storage capability of the battery pack in practice, and enhances the overall service life.

The aforementioned descriptions represent merely the preferred embodiment of the present invention, without any intention to limit the scope of the present invention thereto. Various equivalent changes, alterations, or modifications based on the claims of present invention are all consequently viewed as being embraced by the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the over voltage count number of 0 is merely for illustration, but not limited thereto. The people skilled in the art are capable to adjust the value as necessary, or take other characteristics into considerations, as long as the voltage of the battery cells which are easily to be over the over voltage protection point may be divided from the other battery cells.