Fault-Tolerant Battery Power Network Architecture of Networked Swappable Battery Packs in Parallel

Abstract

To improve the reliability and energy efficiency of battery swapping, we constructed a battery power network system with active redundancies and with multiple battery management controllers (one in each newly developed smart redundant battery pack). Each pack is getting ready to assume the role of the major to coordinate direct safe mounting of the packs onto the power bus for load sharing or charging without the need for a direct current to direct current converter. This fault-tolerant architecture provides multiple backups in both management control and power supply. To verify this design, the mounting, insertion, and removal of the battery packs were executed during charging and discharging. Battery packs can be swapped on and off safely at any time regardless of their charging states. Battery packs can be direct safe mounted onto the power bus by a threshold algorithm. With each mount on event, the equivalent output energy conversion efficiency ranges from 98.3% to 99.2% throughout the transient. Moreover, when the major battery pack fails or gets removed, other battery packs can indeed assume the role of major safely. The reliability, energy efficiency, and safety of our system were verified.