State of Charge Equalizing Device and Assembled Battery System Including Same

• US 20090167248A1
• Filed: 12/23/2008
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sanyo Electric Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sanyo Electric Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: MURAO, Hiroya, KIRIMOTO, Mika
• Granted Patent: US 7,923,969 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 320/134
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/0016 using shunting, discharge or bypass circuits
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries

Abstract

A state-of-charge equalizing device equalizes the state of charge of each of cells connected in series to form an assembled battery, and comprises charging/discharging circuits connected in parallel to the respective cells to discharge and/or charge the respective cells, voltage measurement circuits connected to the respective charging/discharging circuits to measure the voltages across the respective cells, and a control circuit. The control circuit comprises a unit calculating an equalization target voltage based on the measured voltages before the charge or discharge starts, a unit starting discharging/charging the cells having a voltage thereacross different from the target voltage, a unit correcting the target voltage to thereby calculate a corrected equalization target voltage for each of those cells based on the difference between the measured voltages before and at a certain time period after the charging/discharging, and a unit ending the discharging/charging when the measured voltage reaches the corrected target voltage.

Claims

1. A state of charge equalizing device equalizing the state of charge of each cell of a plurality of cells connected to each other in series to form an assembled battery, comprising:

a plurality of charging/discharging circuits connected in parallel to the respective cells to discharge and/or charge the respective cells;

a plurality of voltage measurement circuits connected to the respective charging/discharging circuits to measure the voltages across the respective cells; and

a control circuit controlling an operation of each of the charging/discharging circuits based on the measurement result of each of the voltage measurement circuits,

the control circuit comprising;

an equalization target voltage calculating unit calculating an equalization target voltage based on the voltages measured by the plurality of voltage measurement circuits before the plurality of charging/discharging circuits start discharging or charging;

a charging/discharging starting unit that starts discharging or charging the cells each having a voltage thereacross different from the equalization target voltage calculated by the equalization target voltage calculating unit, by means of the respective charging/discharging circuits;

a correcting unit correcting the equalization target voltage to thereby calculate a corrected equalization target voltage for each of said cells based on the difference between the voltage measured by the voltage measurement circuit before the charging/discharging circuit starts discharging or charging the cell and the voltage measured by the voltage measurement circuit after a certain period of time elapses from when the charging/discharging circuit starts discharging or charging the cell; and

a discharging or charging ending unit that ends the discharge or charge of each of said cells by the charging/discharging circuit when the voltage measured by the voltage measurement circuit reaches the corrected equalization target voltage calculated by the correcting unit.

2. The state of charge equalizing device according to claim 1, wherein the certain period of time is set to a period of time which lasts until the voltage across the cell is stabilized and starts changing due to the discharging or charging by the charging/discharging circuit.

3. The state of charge equalizing device according to claim 1, wherein the charging/discharging circuits discharge the respective cells, and the correcting unit calculates the corrected equalization target voltage by subtracting the voltage difference from the equalization target voltage calculated by the equalization target voltage calculating unit.

4. The state of charge equalizing device according to claim 3, wherein the charging/discharging starting unit starts discharging in descending order starting with a cell having the highest voltage among the voltages measured by the plurality of voltage measurement circuits before the charging/discharging circuits start discharging, and the correcting unit calculates the corrected equalization target voltage for each cell every time the discharging of the cell is started.

5. An assembled battery system comprising an assembled battery including a plurality of cells connected to each other in series, and a state of charge equalizing device according to claim 1.