Battery Node Simulation via Analog Current Bus
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current simulation tools are inadequate for accurately predicting the service life and state of charge/state of health of batteries, particularly in applications like electric cars, due to limitations in simulating real-life parameters and providing reliable estimates, leading to user disappointment or inefficiency.
Innovation Solution
A battery simulator system using nodes that communicate through 'currents' on an analog bus, where these 'currents' represent various physical parameters like temperature and charge cycles, allowing for a more accurate simulation of battery state and health, even in not-yet-built batteries, by mapping real-world values to virtual voltages and currents within a circuit simulator.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If off-the-shelf simulation tools are used to simulate battery parameters, then the simulation can be performed with standard tools, but the tools cannot simulate all real-life parameters accurately
Solution Approach 1:
The battery is divided into multiple nodes, each representing a specific physical or chemical aspect of battery operation. Each node is individually simulated with specialized models that capture specific real-life parameters, allowing comprehensive and accurate simulation while maintaining modularity and ease of implementation
Solution Approach 2:
Analog currents are introduced as intermediary signals that carry information between nodes. These currents represent physical quantities (such as ion flux, electron flow, or chemical concentration gradients) and enable accurate coupling between different battery components while maintaining the ability to simulate complex real-life parameters
2Productivity
If a compact simulation approach is used to reduce computational expense, then computational resources are saved, but simulation accuracy may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the battery into independent nodes that can be simulated separately and then coupled through analog currents, the approach achieves compact computation while maintaining accuracy. Each node processes local physics independently, reducing overall computational complexity while preserving detailed physical relationships
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces complex mechanical or numerical computation systems with an analog electrical circuit simulation approach. Physical battery processes are mapped to electrical analogs (currents, voltages, resistances), enabling efficient simulation using standard circuit simulator tools while maintaining high fidelity to real battery behavior
Data Source
AI summary
An arrangement provides simulation of important battery factors such as state of charge or state of health, and the estimates are provided to the human user in ways that permit the human user to make better use of the battery, for example in an electric car. The arrangement is made up in part of nodes, each individually simulated, and at least some of the nodes communicate with each other by means of values which within the domain of the simulator are understood as currents but which may have real-world significance for some value that is not a current at all. The currents are passed on a (simulated) analog bus. Some lines on the analog bus, while understood as “currents” in the domain of the simulator, are actually values that merely pass messages between modeling elements, the “current” values not necessarily representing any real-life measurable such as the aforementioned temperature value.