An Electrochemical Model Based Optimal Charging Algorithm for Lithium-Ion Batteries
In recent years, Lithium-Ion battery has gathered lot of importance in many forms of energy storage applications due to its overwhelming benefits. Any battery pack alone cannot achieve its optimal performance unless there is a robust and efficient energy management system, commonly known as battery management system or BMS. The Lithium-Ion charger is a voltage-limiting device that is similar to the lead acid system. The difference lies in a higher cell voltage; tighter voltage tolerance and the absence of trickle or float charge at full charge. In this work, we propose the design of a novel optimal strategy for charging the battery that better suits the battery performance. A performance index is defined that aims at minimizing the effort of regeneration along with a minimum deviation from the rated maximum thresholds for cell temperature and charging current. A more realistic model based on battery electrochemistry is used for the optimal algorithm design as opposed to equivalent circuit models. To solve the optimization problem, Pontryagin’s principle is used which is very effective for constrained optimization problems with both state and input constraints. Simulation results show that the proposed optimal charging algorithm is capable of shortening the charging time of a Lithium Ion cell while maintaining the temperature constraint when compared with the standard constant current charging.