Battery management system for electric vehicles

• US 10,328,805 B1
• Filed: 10/01/2015
• Issued: 06/25/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zipline International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Zipline International Inc.
• Inventors: Wyrobek, Keenan, Martz, III, James Laird, Rinaudo, Keller
• Primary Examiner(s): Muralidar, Richard V
• Application Number:
  US14/872,974
• Time in Patent Office: 1,363 Days
• Field of Search: 320109, 320134-136
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2200/10 Air crafts
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/622 by satellite navigation
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/70 Interactions with external data bases, e.g. traffic centres
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/52 drive range estimation, e.g. of estimation of available travel distance
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/54 Energy consumption estimation
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/00 Methods of charging batteries, specially adapted for electric vehicles; Charging stations or on-board charging equipment therefor; Exchange of energy storage elements in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/80 Exchanging energy storage elements, e.g. removable batteries
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/12 responding to state of charge [SoC]
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/16 responding to battery ageing, e.g. to the number of charging cycles or the state of health [SoH]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/7072 Electromobility specific charging systems or methods for batteries, ultracapacitors, supercapacitors or double-layer capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/72 Electric energy management in electromobility
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/14 Plug-in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles

Abstract

An electric vehicle system includes a battery management system that optimizes the performance and useful life of vehicle batteries by selecting the optimal batteries in an inventory for each electric vehicle mission based on the mission energy requirements, the energy storage capacities of batteries, and the predicted performance degradation of batteries.

Claims

1. A method for selecting a battery for an electric vehicle, comprising:

determining a predicted energy storage capacity degradation value of a battery by reducing an initial energy storage capacity value of the battery based at least on a number of charge cycles experienced by the battery;

electronically receiving mission information describing a route to be travelled by the electric vehicle;

electronically determining a mission energy requirement for the electric vehicle based at least partially on the mission information;

selecting the battery from a plurality of batteries based at least on the predicted energy storage capacity degradation of the battery and the mission energy requirement;

charging the selected battery based at least partially on the mission energy requirement; and

installing the battery in the electric vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising activating a human-readable indicator associated with the selected battery.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising charging the selected battery based at least partially on the mission energy requirement.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the predicted capacity degradation of the battery is determined based on a computer model that takes a charge level of the battery and the mission energy requirement as input parameters.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein reducing the initial energy storage capacity value of the battery based at least on the number of charge cycles experienced by the battery includes reducing the initial energy storage capacity value by a particular amount for each of the charge cycles.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the particular amount is based on a reduction of energy storage capacity that was observed historically in similar batteries.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the predicted energy storage capacity degradation value of the battery further comprises reducing an initial energy storage capacity value of the battery based at least on a temperate at which the battery was discharged.