Chapter 13 - Battery management and life prediction

Abstract

Battery management is the effective use and control of energy and power in and out of a string of at least one battery, either primary or secondary. A battery is a combination of series and/or parallel cells placed into a single containment as a battery module. The battery management includes discharge and may include charge for secondary batteries. It is concerned with getting the most useful energy out of the battery cells on a single discharge cycle. For secondary rechargeable batteries, this may include optimizing the charge into the battery to get the most energy out of the battery cells on subsequent discharges. By this, the management system minimizes the impact of operating conditions that could harm the battery performance, including its life. The chapter also focuses on battery life prediction that is often used as an estimate of the service life, which may include calendar life and/or life cycle of either a battery or a battery pack. Another common objective of life prediction is to estimate the long-term life of a battery regarding its end of life (EOL) criteria so that the decision can be made whether the battery should be replaced to regain a good confidence of reliability for an operation system to perform certain functions.