Battery apparatus and method for monitoring battery state of a secondary battery

• US 7,009,401 B2
• Filed: 08/08/2003
• Issued: 03/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd., Shin-Kobe Electric Machinery Company Limited (Resonac Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd., Shin-Kobe Electric Machinery Company Limited (Resonac Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Emori, Akihiko, Miyazaki, Hideki, Kinoshita, Takuya, Hirasawa, Tokiyoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Sherry, Michael
• Assistant Examiner(s): Grant, Robert
• Application Number:
  US10/636,672
• Publication Number:
  US 20040076872A1
• Time in Patent Office: 942 Days
• Field of Search: 324426-427, 324429-431, 180/65.1
• US Class Current: 324/430
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2210/20 AC to AC converters
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/12 responding to state of charge [SoC]
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/3648 comprising digital calculation means, e.g. for performing an algorithm
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/389 Measuring internal impedance, internal conductance or related variables
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 10/44 Methods for charging or discharging circuits for charging H02J7/00
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 10/48 Accumulators combined with arrangements for measuring, testing or indicating the condition of cells, e.g. the level or density of the electrolyte constructional details of current conducting connections for detecting conditions inside cells or batteries, e.g. details of voltage sensing terminals, H01M50/569
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/10 Energy storage using batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/72 Electric energy management in electromobility

Abstract

Motor generator (MG) is controlled via motor controller by MG control processor of CPU, so that voltage and current of battery is detected while changing frequency of state detection current flowing in the secondary battery. According to the detection results, impedance is calculated in the impedance calculation unit. Remaining mount is calculated from the impedance obtained and the battery characteristics stored in memory. Furthermore, remaining amount change correction unit adds integration current between impedance measurements to the remaining amount for correcting the remaining amount. Weighting coefficient is determined from the standard deviation based on the corrected value and the remaining amount and weighted mean is calculated in weighted mean unit. Next, the result of the remaining amount calculation is used to perform service life calculation and service life correction calculation, and weighted mean is calculated in the same way as the remaining amount.

Claims

1. A method for evaluating characteristic of a secondary battery passing power to/from one or more electric devices mounted on a vehicle, the method comprising steps of:

measuring the current and voltage of the secondary battery according to a plurality of frequencies generated by the one or more electric devices;

calculating impedance of the secondary battery from the measurement results; and

evaluating the battery characteristic of the secondary battery from the impedance calculated;

wherein the electric device is a motor/generator for driving the vehicle and generating electricity by receiving drive force from the vehicle, and the method further comprises steps of;

controlling the motor/generator during a non-power running period of the motor/generator;

measuring the current and voltage of the secondary battery while changing the frequency of the state detection current applied to the secondary battery;

calculating the impedance from the measurement results;

calculating the remaining amount of the secondary battery from the impedance and the battery characteristics;

calculating a parasitic capacity of the secondary battery from the remaining amount and the impedance;

performing deterioration calculation to obtain a service life;

calculating a correction value of the change of the remaining amount or the service life according to the integration current of the secondary battery successively measured during the impedance calculation;

maintaining an error of the calculation result of remaining amount or the service life up to the preceding time;

calculating an error of the calculation result this time after correcting the change from the preceding calculation result; and

calculating a weighted mean according to the preceding error and the current error.

2. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the battery consists of a plurality of sets of batteries and uniform charge is performed periodically for charging all the cells to the full charge, after which the remaining amount of the battery is calculated.

3. A method for evaluating characteristic of a secondary battery passing power to/from one or more electric devices mounted on a vehicle, the method comprising steps of:

measuring the current and voltage of the secondary battery according to a plurality of frequencies generated by the one or more electric devices;

calculating impedance of the secondary battery from the measurement results; and

evaluating the battery characteristic of the secondary battery from the impedance calculated;

wherein the electric device is a generator driven by an internal combustion engine of the vehicle and measure current and voltage of the secondary battery while controlling the output of the generator and changing the frequency of the state detection current applied to the secondary battery, the method further comprising steps of;

calculating an impedance from the plurality of measurement results;

calculating the remaining amount of the secondary battery from the impedance and the battery characteristic;

calculating a parasitic capacity of the secondary battery from the remaining amount and the impedance;

performing deterioration calculation according to the parasitic capacity of the secondary battery to obtain a service life;

calculating a correction value of the change of the remaining amount or the service life according to the integration current of the secondary battery successively measured during the impedance calculation;

maintaining an error of the calculation result of remaining amount or the service life up to the preceding time;

calculating an error caused by the current calculation result in which the change from the preceding calculation result is corrected; and

obtaining a weighted mean of the error of the preceding error and the current error.

4. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the battery consists of a plurality of sets of batteries and uniform charge is performed periodically to charge all the cells to full charge, after which the remaining amount of the battery is calculated.

5. A secondary battery evaluation method for evaluating a secondary battery by calculating the impedance according to measurement results of current and voltage of the secondary battery and referencing the battery characteristic, the method comprising steps of:

calculating the impedance while successively changing the frequency of the current flowing to the secondary battery;

calculating the remaining amount of the secondary battery from the impedance and the battery characteristic;

calculating a correction value of the remaining amount change according to an integration current of the secondary battery successively measured during impedance calculation; and

calculating the remaining amount of the secondary battery by averaging the remaining amount and the correction value.

6. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 5, the method comprising steps of:

performing deterioration calculation according to the parasitic capacity of the secondary battery obtained from the remaining amount and the impedance, so as to obtain a service life;

calculating a second correction value by correction of the service life change based on the integration current; and

averaging the service life and the second correction value, so as to obtain the service life of the secondary battery.

7. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 6, the method comprising steps of:

maintaining an error by the calculation result of the remaining amount or the service life up to the preceding time;

calculating an error of the calculation result this time after correcting the change from the preceding calculation result; and

obtaining a weighted mean of the preceding error and the current error.

8. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the interval (t_intval) for calculating the remaining amount is optimized according to the error of the integration current.

9. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the deterioration calculation is corrected according to the parasitic capacity of the secondary battery and temperature characteristic.

10. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the impedance calculation is performed by selecting three or more points from a frequency range 1 to 1000 Hz and measuring the current and voltage of the secondary battery according to the operation of the AC current load indicating one of the frequency points, after which the current and voltage of the other points are measured.

11. A secondary battery evaluation method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the calculation of the remaining amount or the service life employs both of the calculation method based on the impedance and the calculation method based on the integration current detection performed successively during the impedance calculation and the calculation results of the calculation methods are subjected to weighted mean.

12. A battery apparatus for evaluating battery characteristic of a secondary battery passing power to/from one or more electric devices mounted on a vehicle, comprising:

control means for applying the state detection current by a plurality of frequencies generated by operation of the one or more electric devices to the secondary battery;

impedance calculation means for measuring current and voltage of the secondary battery based on the frequency and calculating the impedance of the secondary battery from the measurement results;

storage means containing characteristic relationship between the remaining amount and the impedance of the secondary battery; and

battery characteristic calculation means for evaluating the battery characteristic of the secondary battery for the impedance calculated according to the characteristic relationship;

wherein the electric device is a motor/generator for driving the vehicle and generating electricity by receiving the drive force from the vehicle or a generator driven by an internal combustion engine as a passive source of the vehicle and the control means detects a non-power running period of the motor/generator, stops output of the motor/generator or the generator, and changes the frequency of the state detection current applied to the secondary battery.

13. A battery apparatus comprising:

a voltage/current detection unit for detecting voltage and current of a secondary battery;

a storage unit for storing battery characteristics of the secondary battery calculated in advance so as to be referenced; and

a CPU having an impedance calculation unit for calculating the impedance of the secondary battery from the detected voltage and current, a remaining amount calculation unit for calculating the remaining amount of the secondary battery according to the calculated impedance and the battery characteristics, a remaining amount change correction unit for correcting the remaining amount change according to an integration current of the secondary battery, a service life calculation unit for calculating the service life of the secondary battery according to the parasitic capacity calculated by the impedance calculation unit and the remaining amount calculated by the remaining amount calculation unit, and a service life change correction unit for correcting the service life change;

wherein the calculation results of the remaining amount calculation unit and the remaining amount change correction unit and/or the service life calculation unit and the service life change correction unit are subjected to weighted mean to obtain the remaining amount and/or the service life of the secondary battery.

14. A battery apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein control is made to apply a state detection current of frequency range of 1 to 1000 Hz to the secondary battery and the impedance is calculated at three or more points in the frequency range.

15. A battery apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein the voltage/current detection unit includes two systems, i.e., AC detection means and DC detection means.