Method and Device for Measuring Internal Impedance of Stationary Battery

• US 20080303528A1
• Filed: 11/17/2006
• Published: 12/11/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Incell Corporation LLC
• Original Assignee: Incell Corporation LLC
• Inventors: Kim, Deuk Soo
• Granted Patent: US 8,035,396 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 324/430
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/385 Arrangements for measuring battery or accumulator variables for monitoring G01R31/382
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/389 Measuring internal impedance, internal conductance or related variables
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/392 Determining battery ageing or deterioration, e.g. state of health
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/396 Acquisition or processing of data for testing or for monitoring individual cells or groups of cells within a battery

Abstract

Battery system is widely used in emergent power plant or communication network power plant and its effective management is important. When any one of batteries connected to each other in series is failed during operation of the battery system, since reliability of the system cannot be secured, a problem is arisen to stable operation of the communication network. In a method of separating inferior battery, the battery is operated in floating charge state without separation to generate square current containing charge current and easily generated to flow through the battery cell, voltage signal generated from terminal voltage of the battery by the measuring signal is processed such that only internal impedance voltage signal is separated from harmonics ripple voltage and noise voltage by a synchronized detection calculating algorithm to calculate the internal impedance or effective value thereof (resistance component). When the algorithm is applied after filtering only fundamental frequency and similar component by general filter, measuring precision can be improved and measuring time can be reduced.

Claims

1. A method of measuring an internal impedance of a stationary battery as an object to be measured and an effective value of the internal impedance, the method comprising:

controlling a measuring signal to flow through the object;

the measuring signal is an injection current (Ipw) or a discharge current (Isd) in the shape of a square wave;

filtering a predetermined frequency component necessary for the measurement among frequency components of the measuring signal by a filtering means or by performing a filtering program, the predetermined frequency component being necessary for the measurement of the internal impedance;

filtering an impedance voltage of the predetermined frequency component among an impedance voltage signal of the object to be measured, the impedance voltage signal being generated by the square measuring signal; and

calculating the internal impedance and the effective value of the internal impedance by using the filtered measuring signal and the filtered impedance voltage signal.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measuring signal is controlled by a pulse width modulation or a pulse amplitude modulation.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measuring signal is controlled to have a conduction angle of 120 degrees or 180 degrees.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measuring signal is controlled by a large number of pulses by a pulse width modulation for a conduction period of 120 degrees or 180 degrees.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a fundamental frequency of the measuring signal;

calculating respective calculating terms from an alternating current voltage, an AC current, a cosine wave, and a sine wave;

determining a predetermined integration period necessary for the calculation by obtaining the greatest common divider between values which are obtained by adding and subtracting all frequency components each other of forming the alternating voltage or the AC current or values which are obtained by adding and subtracting all frequency components each other of forming alternating current voltages or AC currents, the predetermined integration period being a period corresponding to a frequency of the greatest common divider or an integer times thereof; and

integrating the calculating terms for the predetermined integration period to obtain respective calculating terms having only direct current components.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measuring signal comprises a voltage waveform generated by controlling a power source by the pulse width modulation or the pulse amplitude modulation.

7. An internal impedance measuring device of a stationary battery for measuring an internal impedance of respective stationary battery cells comprising a large number of stationary batteries or an effective value of the internal impedance, the device comprising:

a current injecting and discharging circuit to make a measuring signal flow through the stationary battery cells of respective strings of stationary batteries, the measuring signal being an injection current (Ipw) or discharge current (Isd) in the shape of a square wave;

current sensing means, installed to respective strings of the stationary batteries, detecting an AC current containing the measuring signal that flows through the respective strings of the stationary batteries;

a switch configured to switch the AC current detected by the current sensing means and an additional current sensing means installed to an output end of the current injecting and discharging circuit to a measuring and calculating circuit;

a current connecting means to switch the measuring current to the respective strings of the stationary batteries; and

the measuring and calculating circuit to calculate the internal impedance or the effective value of the internal impedance using the measuring signal and a measuring frequency component of an impedance voltage signal of the battery cells.

9. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the current injecting and discharging circuit is controlled by a pulse width modulation or a pulse amplitude modulation to generate the measuring signal.

10. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the current injecting and discharging circuit generates the measuring signal controlled by a conduction angle of 120 degrees or 180 degrees.

11. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the current injecting and discharging circuit generates the measuring signal controlled by a large number of pulses by the pulse width modulation for a conduction angle of 120 degrees or 180 degrees.

12. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the fundamental frequency of the measuring signal is determined to be identical to any one of 0.5 times, integer times, (n+0.5) times, and a sixth harmonics of a frequency of a commercial power source, and times of 10 Hz.

13. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, further comprising a charger configured to charge the string of the stationary batteries including a large number of stationary batteries, wherein the measuring and calculating circuit measures the internal impedance or the effective value of the internal impedance using an impedance voltage component generated by a first harmonics or a lower order harmonic component of a charging ripple current applied from the charger.

14. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the current injecting and discharging circuit generates the injection current (Ipw) or discharge current (Isd) such that the fundamental frequency of the measuring signal is in phase with the first harmonics or the lower order harmonics of the charging ripple current, and

wherein the internal impedance and the effective value is calculated by using the measuring signal and impedance voltage.

15. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the measuring and calculating circuits comprises:

a first filtering means to filter the fundamental frequency component and the measuring signal of a similar frequency component from the AC current;

a differential amplifying circuit to divide or amplify terminal voltages of the stationary battery cells;

a direct current coupling circuit to filter only the impedance voltage of the stationary battery cells from the terminal voltages;

a second filtering means to filter the fundamental frequency component necessary for the measurement and the similar frequency component from the impedance voltage; and

an analog/digital converter to convert an analog signal filtered by the first and second filtering means into a digital signal.

16. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 15, wherein the measuring and calculating circuit further comprises a period reading circuit to a period of the fundamental frequency component filtered by the second filtering means.

17. The internal impedance measuring device according to claim 15, wherein the measuring and calculating circuit further comprises a direct current coupling circuit to filter only alternating current component of the AC current containing the injection current (Ipw) or the discharge current (Isd).

8. An internal impedance measuring device of a stationary battery for measuring an internal impedance of respective stationary battery cells or an effective value of the internal impedance, the device comprising:

a current injecting and discharging circuit to generate a measuring signal for generating a voltage component of the internal impedance of the stationary battery cells, the measuring signal being an injection current (Ipw) or discharge current (Isd) in the shape of a square wave;

a current sensing means to detect the measuring signal flowing through the stationary battery cells; and

a measuring and calculating circuit to calculate the internal impedance or the effective value of the internal impedance using the measuring signal and a measuring frequency component of an impedance voltage of the stationary battery cells.