Advanced battery condition monitoring in electric and hybrid vehicles

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Transport)
Other Power and Storage Technologies(Energy storage)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor NP Brandon
Earth Science and Engineering
Imperial College London

Standard

EPSRC

01 September 2010

29 February 2012

18 months

£221,230

Management & business studies

London

Energy : Energy

Professor NP Brandon, Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London

Dr PD Mitcheson, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London

A key part of reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles will be the increased electrification of transport through battery electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles. Lithium-ion based chemistries surpass all other rechargeable cells in terms of energy per unit weight and per unit volume and this makes them particularly attractive in vehicle applications. However, the battery is one of the most expensive parts in an electric power-train and therefore it is imperative to ensure that it lasts as long as possible. Battery durability is a significant challenge to commercialisation, and a key way to improve battery durability is to ensure proper management of the cells during use. To this end, battery condition monitoring is vital for the uptake of low carbon vehicles. However, currently available on-vehicle battery monitoring systems use diagnostic methods that are limited to an uncertain estimation of battery state of charge and state of health and provide little information about internal electrochemical processes. The proposed research will develop a much improved condition monitoring system which is not only able to measure state of charge accurately but can also measure cell degradation processes, and predict and prevent cell failure in advance, whilst using the existing drive-train components present in an electric or hybrid vehicle, adding as little additional hardware as possible

08/06/10