National Power and Energy Conference (rECon) 2003 Prnceedillgs, Ballgi, MalaysiH

21n
Lithium-Ion Battery Charger for High Energy
Application-
M. P: M. Elias, K. M. Nor, Senior Melllhe/', IEe: N. A. Rahim, MUll/her. fEEH, A. K. Am!'
Ahstract--This paper describes the design of microcontroller
based battery charger to charge Uthium-ion battery pack with
the charging method, balandng technIque, charging control
ulgorHhm. battery proteclion, b:lllcry InllllllgellltJIt unil :lIId
Implementation of the battery rilarger nre discussed condscly.
Advantages, disadvantages ami problems arise are also
discussed. In fact, an excellent battery charger offers very fast
charge tIme. full rapacity and balanced battery cells. low
operating temperuture ami highly effdent and reliable.
Keywords-- Lithium-Ion Baltery, BuUery Charger,
Balancing Circuits, Constant Current/Constant Voltage, Linear
Generator
I. INTRODUCTION
L
ITHI.UM-I?N battery is a rechargeable battery that can
proVide hIgh energy density, effcient, reliable and
suit able for b oth high energy and low energy application.
For example, in high energy applicati on, Li-ion battery can
be used in linear generator system, backup power system and
electric hybrid vehicle system. Whereas, in low power
application, Li-ion battery mainly used in the industry of
information and communication technology because of the
need for high capacity, long shelf life, lightweight and
smaller size. This made the battery becomes the best choice
to support most of today's portable application. It also can
be found easily in many electronics equipment because of its
potential ability over the other batteries. However, Li-ion
battery charging is more complicated since many factors
need to be considered especially when the battery pack
consists of a number of Li-ion battery cells, which are
connected in series. Moreover, the battery cannot be over
charged because of its chemistry limitations. Therefore,
exceptional contol unit is required and plays important role
in controlling both charging and discharging process to
ensure that Li-ion battery pack is long-lasting or extended
life.
In this paper, the Li-ion bater charger is designed for
high energy applications such for storage system in a linear
generator system, hybrid electric vehicle and electric
vehicle.
This research is fully supported by Ministry of Science. Technology and
EnVironment, Malaysia under IRPA Grant.
M. F. M. Elias, K. M. Nor, N. A. Rullim are with the EIctrical
Engineering Department, Facully 01' Engineering. Universily or Malaya.
50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malayia (coresponding author to provide phone:
+603-79676866; fax: +603-79675387; e-mail: mfmeJO@yahoo.com).
A. K. Arf is with the PhySics Department, Faculty of Science,
University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (corresponuing
allillor to provide phone: +603-7%74085.)
0-7803-8208-0103/$17.00 2003 IEEE.
The battery used in the design is Li-ion battery wilh capacity
1 Ah and voltage 4.2V where LiPF6 is used as its e1ectrolyte_
OUf charger is designed 10 dwrge 100 butlery modules,
where I module consists of 10 Ilumher of Li-ioll hnllery (ells
in series.
II. Tl IE DESIGN CONCEPTS
A. Charging Me/hod
There a're two common methods ill order to charge Li-ioll
battery. The first method, which is th simplest, is referred
to constant voltage (CV) method. Thc regulated output
voltage of the CV charger is kept at the maximum voltage of
the Li-ion battery where the current is limited to equals or
less than its maximum capacity. As the battery is charged at
constant voltage, the charging current, which is the rate of
charge, is rapidly reduced. In fact, the battery is still capable
to be charged at higher charging current rate. Consequently,
this will takes more time to charge the ballery before the
charging current tapers olf The advantage of this method is .
that the ballery is possible to be charged at its full capacity
level. The ballery is considered fully charged when the
charging current drop below 0.1 C (I]. One C charging
current is defined as the constant charging current that will
fully charge a battery in one hour. Therefore. a batlery with
I Ah capacity will be fully charged with a constant chorging
current of 1/ i n unc hour.
Another method, which is more domin311t than others, is
constant currentconstant voltage (CC/CV) method.
However, CC/CV charger is morc complicated 10 implemcnt
but it ofers faster charging time. Charging starts with
constant current (CC) mode, where the charging current
applied can be equal to Ie. The charging cunent applied is
in terms of short pulse constant current [2]. Between curent
pulses, the voltage across the battery terminal is monitored
to prevent over-charging and then the CC mode is switched
into CV mode once the maximum voltage of the ballery is
reached. At this stage, the battery is about 85% of its full
capacity [I]. Meanwhile, in CV mode, charging current is
monitored to determine when the charging process can be
terminated. Figure I shows the typical charge/discharge
profile of the Li-ion battcry.
B. Cel Balancing
Cell bal ancing is a technique to balance battery cells and
it is very important when charging a battery pack, which
consists of a number of cells in a string. This is applied only
for certain type of battery such lor Li-iol1 battery. Unlike
lead acid and NiMH battery where they can be naturally
balanced through gassing, Li-ion battery requires special
circuit to balance all the cells [3]. In fact, each Li-ion battery
has dilTcrent intcral impedance, thus leads tu the unbalance
of cells during charging. Several factors which may lead to
284
unbalanced cells such as vanatlOns in cell assembly, charge shuttling method [3].
different charge acceptance levels, diferent charge rates and
number of discharge available, temperature gradient across
B1 83 8n
battery pack and power dissipation distribution in the system
[4].
Curenl, VoltgQ v. Time
----
cc C cc
CIlrjt Ch.lr Dc"lin
Me Me Me
lmo
Fig. I. Typical Li-ion Batter ChargeDischarge Profle
Unbalance causes unequal individual voltages when all
the battery is charged as one or more cells will reach the
maximum charge level before the rest of the cells in the
series sting. Traditionally, in order to overcome this
problem the battery is charged at lower rate and this will
takes longer time to charge the entire battery pack.
Typically, the number of cells allowed to be charged in
series is only 4. The drawback of cell balancing is that it
requires more complicated circuit to be implemented.
Neverheless, it can significantly reduce charging time. This
is because the battery can be charged at, faster rate with
balancing action is activated [2]. In order to balance battery
cells, there are several cell balancing methods with diversity
in charging control algorithm that can be applied. Nonnally,
the algorit is programmed inside a rcrocontroller. The
rcrocontroller keeps track on the cells voltage status
periodically to detennine when the balancing action should
be activated. By this way, all battery cells are balanced and
fully charged at its maximum capacity.
In fact, unbalanced voltage cells can reduce the entire
battery pack capacity up to 25% (tyical) of the battery
capacity with l 50mV difference between cells at fuiI charge
condition. This causes the available battery capacity to be
reduced, since the weakest cell in the string determines its
efective capacity. Therefore, battery cells voltage is
maintained to be equal or within acceptable difference
during charging. The battery cells are considered balanced
when the capacity range" of each cell is within 3% [2]. For
end-of-charge cell balancing method, the action is started
from the begining of the charging process to ensure
equalization of the entire battery cells in the end.
There are several methods to perform cell balancing on
Li-ion battery:
i. Charge shuttling
Charge shuttling is an active cell balancing method where
it consists of a "flying capacitor" that removes charge from a
selected cell, stores the charge and then tansfer it into
another selected cell. Figure 2 shows "fying capacitor"
c
Fig. 2. Flying Capacitor Charge Shuttling
ii. Charge shunting
Charge shunting is an end-of-charge cell balancing
method. The charge shunting cell balancing method
selectively shunts the charging curent around each cell as
they become fully charged. Figure 3 shows charge shunting
cell balancing method [3]. In this method, charging curent
is shunted across the unbalanced cell so that it is charged at
lower rate and the balancing action is stopped when it
voltage reaches the lowest cell voltage, This method is
highly efcient but requires large power dissipating resistor
and also high current switches.
t -r:
f I I
L ____
"
____________ l ___________T ____ l ______________.._J
,
J Switching I
Control
Fig. 3. Charge Shunting/Dissipative Resistor
iii. Dissipative Resistor
Dissipative method is an example of passive cell
balancing methods. The dissipative method shunts selected
cells wit high value resistor to remove charge from the
highest cells until they match the charge of the lowest cells
[3J. In fact, the principle of this method is the same as
charge shunting method. The diferent is that charge
shunting method is applied during charging whereas
dissipative resistor method is applied in the end of charging
process while the charging current is removed.
iv. Energy converters
Cell balancing utilizing energy conversion devices employ
inductors or transformers to move energy fom a cell or
group of cells to another cell or group of cells. Figure 4
shows energy converer balancing using switched
transfonner (3). Switched tansfonner method works with
the same switching topology as "fying capacitor" method.
The principle is that, current is taken from the entire cell
stack and then it is switched into transformer primary. As a
result, current will be induced in the transformcr secondary.
Then, the current is moved into the lowest cell through
switching control in order to balance the ceUs.
In fact, each method has its own advantages and
disadvantages. Basically, the method is chosen based on thc
specifc application needs.
C Charging Control Algorithm
Charging control algorithm is a set of rules loHowed by
the microcontroller in charging the Li-ion baUcry pack.
There are several charging control algorithm which can be
used and it is depends on the cell balancing method chosen.
Reference [4] recommends cell balancing algorithm for
charge shunting method as foHows.
I) Identify the unbahlllced cell afer full discharge-
charge cycle
2) Discharge the battery pack.
3)
Enable cell balancing action during charge.
4)
Stop charge periodically and measure cells
5)
If cells are balanced, disconnect the balancing action
and continue to charge to full capacity level.
6) If cells are not balanced, continue to charge with
balancing action active for another period.
7)
Measure cell every period. Continue to balance if
cells are not matched; stop balancing if cells are
matched.
8) If cells are not balanced afer full charge, continue
with balancing action during discharge.
9) Cells become unbalanced more often when the
charge time is rapid.
10) Balancing action improves when cells are charged
slower.
II) Avoid as much as possible rapid charges and match
the balancing action to the charge period while
allowing balancing time to take place.
Fully charged battery with proper cell balancing algorithm
should be equal to or more than 90% of the full battery
capacity. The battery must be completely isolated once fully
charged to prevent the current drains from the battery.
Although the battery pack is completely isolated, self.
discharged still can happened but the rate is very small.
Therefore, in order to maintain the cells vollage, the charger
periodically measures the cells voltage and keeps topping up
the voltage at maximum level.
285
I'ig. 4. SlIi!chltll, 1!, 1'", lilt
D. Balfe!)' Pm(['c/irlll
Protection circuit is very important ror baltrry chnrgcr
especially for Lithium-ion or Lithium-polymer battery
charger. It ensures that the performance of the battery is
preserved efectively and protects the hattery from over
current, over-voltage, under-voltage and also over
temperature. Short-circuit for instance can damage the
battery and therefore requires current sensing circuit to
monitor the charging current. Once over-current is detected,
charging must be stopped immediately, otherwise this will
cause damage to both battery and the charger itself
As discuss earlier, over-voltage must be avoided, thus
requires precise voltage monitoring circuit to provide the
cells voltage status to the microcontrollcr. Ewn though ill n
short run, the voltage of the battery increase as the battery is
charged over the maximum voltage, but in a long run, this
can cause signifcantly reduce the battery ca
p
acity [1].
Under-voltage also can signifcantly reduce the battery
capacity as the battery is let to operate under the minimum
allowable voltage of the battery. I n fact, certain [-ion
batery has certain operating voltage range; 3.7V to 4.2V for
instance. Therefore, the battery must be disconnected from
the load and the charger must recharge the battery when the
battery has reached the lower voltage limit.
Another factor, which is over-temperature, also mllst be
taken into account. Therefore, the battery is ensured 10
operate within specifc temperature range for safety concem.
Operating the battery lower than the temperature limit call
cause reduction in battery capacity whcreas operating the
battery higher than the temperature limit increase the internal
discharge and cause the battery to discharge at laster rate
(4]. In lac!, large temperature gradients <llso contribute to the
cell charge mismatch during charging, hence requires
temperature monitoring circuit for thermal management.
E. BattelY Managemenl VI/it
The purpose or the battery nmnagcmcnt unit is to control
the whole opcration or the hattcry charger. Battery
management unit consists or a ricrocontroiler <nd many
sensors. Microconlroller contains charging algorithm, which
enahles it to determinc whcn 10 stal'l and Slop charging
process. Sensors provide the status of the ba(lery and send
information to the mcrocontrollcr SI that it can make
decision based 1111 Ihe algorithm prognt11llm'd in order It)
charge the battery at optimum level. The unit responds
whenever any fault occurs and gives an indication of the
type of fault [5]. Generally, battery management unit acts as
the brain of the batter charger and detennines efficiency
and perfornce of the whole system.
F Integration with Linear Generator
Specifically, the battery charger is designed to charge Li
ion battery as it is used in linear generator storage system.
Since the output of the linear generator is unregulated AC
output, therefore it needs to be conditioned frst via power
conditioning devices, which consist of advanced converter.
The converter output, which is regulated DC output, is then
used to power the bater charger. Voltage output from
linear generator is basically higher than 42VDC r and
since the voltage required to charge the battery is only 42V,
therefore DCtoDC converter is required to step down the
voltage. As one of the main functions of the battery is to
start the linear generator, the battery draws high current,
which supplied from all of the battery modules. On the other
hand, it can be used as backup power for DC load and also
AC load. Once the linear generator is rnning, it will top up
the battery charge to the maximum level. Battery charger
together with battery management unit should manage to
ensure that the battery is always in fully charged condition
and ready to be used whenever needed.
Fig. 5_ Block Diagam of Integrated Linear Generator System
III. BA TIERY CHARGER IMPLEMENTATION.
The Liion battery charger in the design is
microcontrollerbased with the rcrocontroller contains
charging contol algorithm. It consists of several circuits
that are CC/CV source circuit, cell balancing circuit, contol
circuit and monitoring circuit. In order to charge 100 battery
modules, it is divided into 10 battery pack where I pack
consists of 10 battery modules. At any time, only one pack
is charged which requires total charging current of lOA and
once completed the rest of the battery pack will be charged
sequentially.
Bater
Module
1
Bater
Module
2
Bater
Module
3
Fig. 6. Charging a Batter Pack
Bater
Module
10
286
The Liion battery charger design utilizes CC/CV
charging method where the CC/CV source is designed using
adjustable voltage and current regulator chip to charge the
battery at charging current equal to I C and voltage equal to
42V. To charge one pack requires total charging current of
lOA where each module is charged at constant charging
curent of lA which equal to its full capacity. Figure 6
shows block diagram of DC min source with CC/CV source
is provided to each battery module so that each sting is
indepencent of the others under charging.
In this design, charge shunting method is used for cell
balancing with balancing action follows the algorith
discussed earlier. The cell balancing circuit consists of
power mosfet to shunt the charging current across each
batter cells and is driven by a photovoltaic isolator. The
balancing circuit is designed to shunt almost all charging
current to balance its cell faster. At any time, only one cell
is balanced. Balancing action is activated when the
rcrocontoller sense voltage diference between one cell
and the others and stop when the voltage equal to the lowest
cell voltage. Therefore, voltage measured must be very
precise ,so that all the batter .cells can be flly balanced.
Figure 7 shows charge shunting cell balancing circuit
diagram where power mosfet if driven by photovoltaic
isolator in a battery module.
.The charger has voltage, current and temperature
monitoring circuit with all output of every circuit is digital.
This information is sent to the gbit mcrocontroller for data
processing before control action can be executed. Due to
the large number of modules in a battery pack, therefore it is
not practical to provide each of them with voltage
monitoring circuit. In our design, one battery pack is
provided with one voltage monitoring circuit to reduce the
complexity of the circuit. In order to measure individual cell
voltage in each battery module, rcrocontroller needs to
switch beteen them through power mosfet switch. The
drawback is that, the switch must have very low on state
resistance
,
to avoid signifcant voltage drop, as this will
infuence the accuracy of the voltage measured. Figure 8
shows the voltage monitoring circuit diagram.
Analo
MUX
Selec CelF
1 __
e
Fig. 7. Charge Shunting Cell Balancing Circuit Diagram
The design uses diferential operational amplifer to
measure the cell voltage by comparing its tennal potential.
It is noted that measuring the battery cells voltage during
charging does not give the actual voltage of the battery due
to its efective serial resistance (ESR) and efective serial
inductance (ESL). Therefore, this requires charging process
to be stopped periodically in order to measure the battery
cells voltage. The average value of the ESR for Li-ion
battery is small and lies between 50-200 milliohills whereas
the value of inductance is in nanohenries [I]. The smaller
value of ESR and ESL, the smaller power dissipated when
the battery discharged, and the better the battery is. Current
sensing circuit in the design also must give
p
recise charging
curent especially to determine when the charging should be
stopped. The design uses current sense chip with linear
relation between the charging current and the corresponding
output voltage, which the output is then converted into
digital form as the output of the voltage monitoring circuit.
Temperature monitoring circuit consists of thermistor where
287
determining the effciency of the battery charger because
they provide information to the microcontroller for further
action.
Fig. 8. Voltage Moniloring (,,'lIil Diagram lilr Olle Ilattly Pod
IV. TilE DEStUN ISSUES
Effciency in cell balancing action is very important issue
where all the cells vollage must be highly balanced in Ihe
end of CC charging. Highly balanced ensures that the cells
voltage does not increase further when Ihe charging is
switched into CV mode. recausc of CC charging is stopped
once one of the cells has reached the maximum voltage
while the rest is still lower, therefore the lola I voltage in
.
Terreralure
Snsor
Oer Vollagel
lkder Vollage!
lOer Te"rature I
Mnitor
L ___ -
Oliniation
J
fig. 9. fok Diagram of Li-inn Buttery Charger Qcsign
the output voltage is also converted illtu digital form before
it can be sent to the microcontroller. All these are crucial in
series is till less thull 42V. Whell 42V i applied duing CV
chargi ng mode, the cell which has reached the maximum
voltage may increase frther and causes over-charging
condition. Hence, superior cell balancing action is required
to ensure that the battery cells are highly balanced in the end
of the CC mode and minimize the possibility of increasing in
the cell voltage significantly once the charging is switched
into CV mode where this situation cannot be flly avoided.
The charging process also can be optimized by varying
the current pulse duration in both charging mode instead of
fxed pulse duration. Pulse duration can be made longer in
the beginning so that charging become faster by reduced
monitoring the cells voltage. Whereas, in the end current
pulse duration can be made shorter to monitor cells voltage
frequently in order to ensure that all cells are highly
balanced.
As discussed earlier, temperature gradient may raise
safety concer when temperature of the battery increases
over limt while charging. Therefore, when the temperature
exceeds certain pre-assigned value, the battery can be
charged at lower rate to reduce the temperature of the
bater. This will require variable curent source to charge
battery with different charging current, in which depends on
the battery condition.
Another issue is that the volume and footprint of the
charger system is bulky. This is mainly due to the large
number of component being used, Table 1 shows the
number of some components used in a battery pack in
general. Currently available single chip solution can only
supports typically up to 4 numbers of cells in a string,
whereas Li-ion battery charger in the design can charge
battery, which consists of 10 numbers of cells in a series
string.
Norally, there are many more issues involved in the
design because of many factors need to be considered.
Charging method, balancing technique, charging algorithm,
battery protection, battery management and implementation
are the key factor that detennine the perforance and
efciency of the Li-ion battery charger. Figure 9 shows the
complete block diagram of Li-ion battery charger.
TABLEl
LST OF COMPONENTS USED IN A BA TERY PACK 4/\ IOAH
288
VI. LLKCLLb
[1| K-K. \|c!, "Current, voltage and temperature gover Lilon batter
charging", LU\0 b0u00, 0\I00 b0D100CU0l0I L0H.. N0V Z,
/U. AV0!8b0. hI|]./WVW.puf0l01u!O.Ctim
|2| Y. Of0lV, L. %allIRcZ, "The Benefits oj Cell Balancing". P^1A1,
7l00| ln0U|0|3l00.PV3]8U0:D |//WWW.XICOf.cOm
[3] b.Y. %OOIc, r.J. bChDcIdcI, "A Review oJCel Equalization Methods
for Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer Batlery Systems", b00I0ly of
Pu\0H0IV0 L2I0cl5. l6.. 1.
[4]
"Maximizing Ballery Lie - It Takes More than a Gas Gauge".
b0U!00IP0l0S, Xicor 00H0|8I0d. PV3I8Oc h\|D`/WvW.tCOI.Cu!11
[5] l. P. K0, "Batlety Chargers Jor Electric and Hybrid Vehiches",
0W0I t0ClI0DI05 ! f8SB0f\8l10. VV+. Proceedings, 20-21 \6\.
VV+. 0R0(S). 1J-|1/.
|| \.|.0DC, |.N. %0IIIIl. K.l. 030d5W0IIB.PCV8B0tC LII0!UR
0D HallcfVLh8fRcI. IEEE AES Magazine. November 1997,
[7] "Intelligent Batter Charger Reference Deign", PDBI00I!00 0l0
ll\h- b341\, NI0I0ChIpcChRoCPV lnC., 1vJ.
[| h. 0h055, "Cell Balancing 'fesign Guidelines", PZ1
5J/1/, %!CICChIB CCDCCPV C., ZUZ.
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V. CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that perforance of the battery
depends on how the battery is charged. Excellent charging
system can extend life of a battery where the charger must be
highly effi cient and yet reliable.