Multi-battery Charger with Individual Bypass Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional battery charging systems face issues with overcharge prevention, power dissipation, overheating, and cell balancing in Lithium Sulfur battery packs, which can lead to premature battery degradation, safety risks, and reduced pack performance due to variations in battery chemistry.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a voltage clamp scheme with bypass control circuits to prevent overcharge, a feedback mechanism to reduce power dissipation, temperature monitoring with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to prevent overheating, and a condition monitoring database to balance battery charging, ensuring optimal charging conditions across all batteries.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional charging systems charge a battery pack, then the battery can deliver its rated capacity, but overcharge can cause permanent damage to batteries and reduce their lifetime
Solution Approach 1:
The charging system divides the battery pack into individual battery units, each with its own monitoring and control circuit. The controller independently manages charging for each battery based on its specific state, preventing overcharge of any single unit while maintaining high charging rates for the overall pack.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements real-time feedback monitoring of each battery's voltage, current, and temperature through dedicated sensing circuits. The controller continuously adjusts charging parameters based on this feedback, dynamically preventing overcharge conditions while optimizing charging speed.
2Loss of time
If batteries are charged at high rates, then charging time is reduced, but excessive charge can pose a potential fire risk and generate excessive heat
Solution Approach 1:
Temperature sensors continuously monitor each battery's thermal state, and the controller receives real-time feedback to dynamically adjust charging current. When temperature approaches unsafe thresholds, the system automatically reduces charging rate, preventing thermal runaway while maintaining efficient charging during normal operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The charging system dynamically adjusts charging parameters based on real-time battery conditions rather than using fixed charging rates. The controller modulates charging current according to temperature, voltage, and state of charge, enabling high-speed charging when safe and automatic reduction when thermal limits are approached.
3Productivity
If the charge capacities of the pack are limited by the characteristics of one battery, then the first battery to reach charge complete could prevent the others from being charged, but this reduces overall pack performance
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the battery pack into individually controllable units with separate monitoring circuits for each battery. This allows the controller to manage charging for each battery independently based on its specific capacity and state, enabling the pack to charge at higher overall rates without being constrained by the slowest battery.
Solution Approach 2:
The controller dynamically changes charging parameters (current, voltage) for each individual battery based on its specific characteristics and state of charge. This enables optimized charging rates for each cell while maintaining overall pack efficiency, rather than using a uniform conservative charging rate for the entire pack.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively prevents overcharge, reduces power dissipation and heat generation, prolongs battery life, and maintains balanced charging across the battery pack, enhancing safety and performance by dynamically adjusting charging parameters based on battery conditions.
Implementation Method 1
a voltage clamp scheme with bypass control circuits to prevent overcharge
Implementation Method 2
a feedback mechanism to reduce power dissipation
Implementation Method 3
temperature monitoring with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to prevent overheating
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention discloses a battery charger and a method for charging a plurality of batteries. The battery charger includes: a current source for supplying a source current which has a charge current portion and a diverted current portion; bypass sections; voltage clamp sections; sense sections; a feedback section for processing information from the sense sections; and a controller for modifying the source current based on the information from the feedback section. Each bypass section is connected to a battery for diverting the diverted current. Each voltage clamp section is connected to the bypass section for clamping a voltage across the battery when the voltage increases to a predetermined level. Each sense section is connected to the bypass section for determining the diverted current and/or the charge current.