Effect of Noise Covariance Matrices on State of Charge Estimation Using Extended Kalman Filter

Abstract

The electrification of the transport sector increases the demand for a battery management system that allows the Li-ion battery to work in a sophisticated way to reach its maximum. The main focus of the battery management system is the estimation of the battery’s state of charge (SOC) which is an indicator to determine the driving range of an electric vehicle. However, battery modeling has a direct influence on SOC estimation. In this article, the equivalent circuit model (ECM) and extended Kalman filter (EKF) algorithm are combined for SOC estimation of the Li-ion battery. Since the performance of Kalman filter algorithms strictly depends on noise covariance matrices, incorrect values reduce the accuracy and make divergence in state estimation. Therefore, it is motivated to analyze the impact of process noise and measurement noise covariance matrix values on SOC estimation using Kalman filter algorithms. Ten different combinations of noise covariance matrices are employed to analyze the effect of these matrices on SOC estimation. As a result, the tuning of the filter is critical for improvement in state estimation regardless of the type of the battery model and filtering technique. The matrix values are chosen to take into account the convergence rate and estimation error. To validate the effectiveness of the chosen noise covariance matrices, the simulation results of the ECM based EKF estimation method is superimposed with the discharge curves available in the data sheet. The simulation results show minimal estimation error and a good convergence rate for tuned EKF.