A High Efficiency Low Cost Direct Battery Balancing Circuit Using A Multi-Winding Transformer with Reduced Switch Count

Siqi Li, Chris Mi,

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Michigan - Dearborn Dearborn, Michigan, USA chrismi@umich.edu
Abstract This paper presents a simple circuit for balancing battery cells. The circuit is composed of one low voltage MOSFET for each battery cell and a multi-winding transformer for a group of battery cells. Only one identical gate drive signal for all the MOSFETs is needed to control the balance current. Energy can be directly transferred from higher voltage cells to lower voltage cells. The balancing circuit can achieve ideal balance results as long as the multi-winding transformer has ideal symmetry. Other circuit components' asymmetry would only affect the balance speed. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness. A circuit for balancing a four-cell battery group is tested. The experiment shows the energy transfer efficiency is up to 93% between cell energy transfers.

Mengyang Zhang Electrified Propulsion Systems Chrysler Group LLC Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA mz91@chrysler.com

II.

BALANCE CIRCUIT TOPOLOGY

I.

INTRODUCTION

For a series connected battery string, there is a need to equalize voltage between battery cells. The balance circuits can be divided to two types, one uses energy dissipation method, and the other uses energy recovery method. The energy dissipation method consumes the excess energy of higher cells on a resistor [1]. The balance current is limited by heat and the efficiency is extremely low. Energy recovery method transfers the excess energy among cells, so more efficient and rapid balancing can be expected. One method is to use a DC/DC converter for each cell [1-3], to balance a big amount of cells, individual control of each converter complicates the system. Another method is using multiwinding transformer [1, 4-6], and by utilizing the circuit symmetry, such as transformer ratio, inductance, and diode voltage drop, one power switch can balance several cells. This paper studies a direct balance circuit using a multiwinding transformer [6]. Energy transfers from higher voltage cells to low voltage cells directly and the balance results only rely on the symmetry of the transformer, so the implementation are potentially simpler than the current balancing circuits. Reduced number of switches, accurate balancing, low cost, and simpler control and implementation are main advantages of the proposed battery cell balancing method.

The studied balance circuit is shown in Fig.1. For each battery cell, the same circuit is applied. Take cell B1 for example, Lf1, Cf1 are inductor and capacitor of the output filter, Rs1, Cs1 are snubber resistor and capacitor, respectively. Also Cs1 form a LC circuit with transformer magnetic inductance, thus magnetization current can be reset and soft-switching be achieved by resonant. R1 is a current limit resistor, and Tm1 is one winding of the multi-winding transformer. The balance circuit can support multi-cells by using a 1:1:...:1 symmetrical multi-winding transformer. When MOSFETs M1, M2, , Mn are turned on and off, the battery cells will be coupled by the multi-winding transformer, the voltage on each winding will be identical. When MOSFETs are turned on: for higher voltage cells, the voltage on the battery side is higher than that on the winding side, so energy will flow out of this cell and go into the transformer. While for lower voltage cells, energy will flow into the cell from the transformer winding. The energy transfers from higher voltage cells to lower voltage cells directly. Another multi-winding transformer can be used to drive the gates of the MOSFETs. All the MOSFETs will be driven by only one primary side signal with isolation.

Figure 1. Balance circuit topology

978-1-4577-1216-6/12/$26.00 2012 IEEE

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III.

CIRCUIT OPEATION PRINCIPLE

The balance circuit shown in Fig. 1 can be seen as a multiwinding forward converter. Fig. 2 shows its circuit model considering parasitic resistance. Stray inductance and capacitance are neglected for their relative small value compared with circuit lumped parameters. Based on the model shown in Fig. 2, the balance function and magnetization current reset of the circuit is analyzed. To represent components related with a nonspecific battery cell in Fig. 1, subscript i (i=1~n) is used to substitute the original index number. A. Balance Function The balance function mainly works when all the MOSFETs are in ON status. Neglecting the current on the snubber components and assuming the output filter Lfi and Cfi is larger enough so current iBi and voltage uCfi are constant, when the MOSFETs are on,the following relationships can be derived, uCfi = UBi iBi RBLi uCfi = u0 + (iRi iBi) RCfi + iRi (Ri + Roni) (1) (2)

Figure 2. Balance circuit model A with parasitic resistance

From (3)(7), following equation can be got, iB1 + iB2 + ... + iBn = 0 (8)

where RBLi is the overall resistance on battery side, Roni is the on-resistance of MOSFET Mi. In (2) the soft-switching is assumed that MOSFETs are turned on at zero voltage. So before we turn on MOSFETs, the voltage on snubber capacitor Csi is the same with that on Cfi. And in the MOSFETs ON period, the voltage on Csi and Cfi is the same also. There is no current on Csi when MOSFETs are on. When MOSFETs are off, the magnetization current iLm will resonant with Cs. The resonant characteristics is a little complex and varies with the on and off time. It can affect the battery cell current iBi a little. The detail will be discussed later, here we just consider the average iLm is zero in MOSFETs ON period and iBi is zero in OFF period for simple. Using d to represent the ON duty ratio of MOSFETs, we have iBi = d iRi_ON (3)

Equation (4)(5)(8) is equivalent to the circuit model shown in Fig.3. It's simple that all the battery cells are just connected together with a resistor, so all the battery cell voltage will be equalized. The resistance can be controlled by MOSFET turn on duty ratio by (5), thus the balance current can be controller. The asymmetry of battery connection like wire length, batter inner resistance, capacitor equivalent series resistance, MOSFET on resistance, output current limit resistance will make REi different. But this only affects the balance current, not the final balance voltage. So the circuit can achieve ideal balance voltage as long as the multi-winding transformer is symmetry enough. B. Magnetization Current Reset and Soft Switching When MOSFETs are on, the balance function works like a forward converter, in this application a capacitor Csi is applied for each balance unit to form a resonant circuit with main transformer inductance. The reset of magnetization current as well as soft-switching of power MOSFETs can be achieved by the resonant. Assume all the MOSFETs are turned off at t = 0. For each cell balance circuit, we have

where iRi_ON is the current of Ri during MOSFETs ON period got by (2).From (1~3), following equations can be deduced, UBi REi iBi = u0 where (4)

di 1 t iRi dt + uCsi (0) iRi ( Rsi + Ri ) = u0 = Lm Lm (9) 0 C si dt

REi = RBLi +

1 d 1 RCfi + ( Ri + Roni ) d d

(5)

In Fig.2, the transformer is equivalent to an ideal transformer with inductance Lm. From the energy conservation, we can get (6), iT1u0 + iT2u0 + ... + iTnu0 = 0 By substitute iTi using iRi in (6), we get (7), iR1 + iR2 + ... + iRn = iLm (7) (6)
Figure 3. Balance equivalent circuit model B

When MOSFETs are on, the voltage on Csi is almost equal to u0 if we neglect the voltage drop on Ri. From Fig. 3, we can get the voltage on each transformer winding which is the

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average voltage of all battery cells. So when the MOSFETs are turned off, the resonant begins with initial condition:

uCsi (0) u0 (0) = U B

(10)

In the balance circuit application, current limiter Ri is about 0.1 ohm. Rsi is used to damp the oscillation caused by transformer leakage inductance and is about 1 ohm. The total magnetization current is less than 0.5A. For each cell current iRi is part of iLm and it is much smaller than 0.5A. So in (9) the voltage drop on resistance Rsi and Ri can be neglected, and a second-order equation is obtained to describe the resonant condition, Lm Cs u0 + u0 = 0 where
Cs = Csi
i n

the soft-switching area is marked with shadow. After t1, uds can maintain nearly zero as long as iLm is negative. However, if the MOSFETs are not turned on before t3, the diode will be turned off, Cs will resonant with iLm with an initial condition u0(t3)= min(UBi)+UD, iLm(t3) = 0.
Besides (10), we need u0 (0) to solve (11). From Fig. 4, we can get the following equation.
u0 (0) = U (T Tos ) 1 iLm (0) B Cs 2 Lm Cs (13)

(11)

In (13), the relation of T and Tos is not given, so we need another equation. Here we introduce a parameter , and the definition of is

(12)

U 0max UB

(14)

From (11) and (12), we can see that the main transformer inductance resonant with capacitor Cs. Combine with Fig. 3, the following events occur as shown in Fig. 4. Here T is the switching period, Tos is the LC oscillation period, Tsf is the soft-switching time window. First, at t0 all the MOSFETs are turned off. The magnetization current iLm discharges Cs, so u0 decreases from U B . Because of the LC resonant, Cs can be charged reversely to a negative high voltage, this high voltage can shorten iLm reset time. When iLm=0, capacitor Cs has the highest negative voltage. Then, iLm is reversely charged by Cs. When Cs=0, iLm has the highest negative current. After that, iLm will charge Cs again, so u0 increases. At time t1, u0=min(UBi)+UD, where UD is the MOSFET body diode voltage drop, and the diode of MOSFET connected to the lowest voltage cell will turn on. u0 is clamped to min(UBi)+Ud. At this time, the drain source voltage on all of the MOSFET will be equal to or less than the voltage drop of the body diode. At time t2, all the MOSFETs are turned on with a very low voltage, so the switching loss can be minimized. In Fig. 4,

The MOSFET drain-source voltage is ( + 1) U B . is a design parameter. It should make full utilization of MOSFET voltage rating to decrease magnetization current reset time. So a larger duty ratio can be applied to get higher balance current. From (10)~(14), we can get

2 1 1 T = (2 1 + 2sin + ) Lm Cs 1 1 (15) + ) Lm Cs Tos = (2sin T = 2 1 L C m s sf From (15) we can calculate the range of MOSFET turn on duty ratio in soft-switching condition:
T Tos Tsf 2 1 = d min = 1 T 2 2 1 + 2sin 1 + 2 T Tos 2 1 d max = T = 1 2 2 1 + 2sin 1 +

u0
min(UBi)+UD UB U0max ILmax

Tos

Tsf T

(16)

iLm

t
ILmax

IV. SIMULATION ANALYSIS A set of balance circuit parameters for a four-cell battery group is given in this part. The balance function is simulated using both model shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Also, the switching waveform is given to demonstrate the softswitching characteristics. A. Circuit parameters In most lithium-ion applications, the voltage of each cell is less than 4.2V. And for low voltage MOSFET, 30V is a common seen breakdown drain to source voltage. So we choose 5 for value. The maximum uds will be 25V. Considering the driving loss, transformer and inductor volume, we choose 100kHz for the switching frequency. To increase the balance current, no external resistor is added to limit the balance current. The resistance value in (5) is

uds

UB+U0max

UD

t0

t1

t2 t3

t4

Figure 4. Typical waveforms in one switching period

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evaluated according to the wire resistance and parasitic resistance. The other parameters are listed in Table I.
TABLE I. Symbol T UBmax Udsmax RBLi Lfi Cfi RCfi Roni Csi Rsi Ri Lm dmin dmax Value 10 s 4.2V 25 V 0.1 ohm 2.7 H 220 F 0.04 ohm 27 mohm 4.7 nF 1 ohm 0.05ohm 30 H 0.35 0.7 BALANCE CIRCUIT PARAMETERS Comment MOSFET switching period Maxmium voltage of each battery cell Maxmium MOSFET drain-source voltage Overall line resistance on battery side Output filter inductance Output filter capacitor ESR of Cfi IRLML0030 @ (Ids = 5.2A, Vgs = 6V, 25oC) Snubber capacitor for each cell Damping resistor for each cell Current limitor resistance Transformer main inductance Minium on duty ratio in soft-switch range Maximum on duty ratio in soft-switch range

B. Balance function simulation LTspice software is used to simulate circuit model A shown in Fig. 2. Another circuit shown in Fig. 5 is used for the driving of all MOSFETs so there is only one control signal. Circuit model B in Fig. 3 is very simple and the balance current is calculated by hand. Fig. 6 is the balance current results of the two circuit models. Two cases are simulated and the parameters are listed in Table II. Fig. 6(a) shows the balance current for case1. The voltage of battery cell 1 is higher than the other cells. The current of cell 1 is positive so it flows out of the battery. Fig. 6(b) shows the balance current under case2. It shows the balance current under asymmetrical parameters. The balance function works well. Also, the results of the two models agree very well. In high duty ratio, there is almost no difference between the two models. While in lower duty ratio, the magnetization current will flow into the lower voltage cells in time t1~t2 shown in Fig. 4. It is not considered in model B. So there is a little difference of the balance current at lower duty ratio.
TABLE II. Cell # 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 SIMULATION PARAMETERS Battery Voltage 3.5V 3.3V 3.3V 3.3V 3.5V 3.4V 3.3V 3.2V Other parameters The same as in Table I. The same as in Table I. The same as in Table I. The same as in Table I. R, L ,C increase 50% The same as in Table I. The same as in Table I. The same as in Table I.

Case1

Case2

Figure 5. MOSFET driving circuit schematic

0.8 0.6 0.4 I/A 0.2 0 -0.2 -0.4 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 duty 0.5 0.6 0.7 3.3V 3.5V

C. Switching waveforms Fig. 7 shows the switching waveform of MOSFET M1 under different duty ratio with simulation parameters in case1. It can be seen when soft-switching is achieved between duty ratio 0.35~0.70, the MOSFET drain to source voltage is similar to that in Fig. 4. When duty ratio is less than 0.35, the oscillation of Lm and Cs occurs. V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS To validate the analysis and simulation results, a balance circuit board for a four-cell battery group is designed according to the parameters listed in Table I. Twisted multi-strand magnet copper wire is used to make the multi-winding transformer. The twist process makes the windings coupling tight and high symmetry achieved in spatial. Isolation between different windings is attained by the wire insulation layer. In real production the isolation stage should be strengthened for reliability. For each winding, 5 strands of magnet wire with inner diameter of AWG30 is chosen for the transformer to eliminate the skin effect. The wire can carry 2.5A current with about 25oC temperature rise in still air condition. The transformer turns-ratios are measured by BK precision 4040A signal generator and Fluke 87III True RMS Multi-meter. The asymmetry is less than 0.5, and the coupling coefficient is greater than 0.999. The main inductance is 33H, the leakage inductance is less than 20nH.

(a) under symmetrical parameters

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 I/A 0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.6 -0.8 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 duty 3.5V 3.3V 3.2V 3.4V

0.5

0.6

0.7

(b) under asymmetrical parameters Figure 6. Balance current simulation

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25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

10 t/us

15

20

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

abs(uB 3 iB 3 + uB 4 iB 4 ) uB1 iB1 + uB 2 iB 2 + Pdrv

(17)

U/V

U/V

where Pdrv is the power loss of driver circuit which about 40mW.
0 5 10 t/us 15 20

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

U/V

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

U/V

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

U/V

Vgs

Vds

U/V

10 t/us

15

20

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

Vgs

U/V

10 t/us

15

20

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

Vgs

U/V

10 t/us

15

20

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

Fig. 9 gives the MOSFET drain-source and gate-source voltage under duty ratio 0.1~0.7. Soft-switching is achieved at 0.3~0.7. In lithium-ion battery application, cell voltage difference in normal operation is no more than 0.5V. Most time, the balance circuit works at 0.7 duty ratio to get a larger balance current.
25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

U/V

U/V

10 t/us

15

20

Vds

U/V

U/V

10 t/us

15

20

U/V

U/V

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

(a) duty = 0.7 Vds

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

10 t/us

15

20

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

Vds Vgs

(b) duty = 0.5 Vds Vgs

10 t/us

15

20

(c) duty = 0.4

0 5 10 t/us 15 20

10 t/us

15

20

(d) duty = 0.3

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

10 t/us

15

20

Figure 7. Simulation of MOSFET switching voltage waveforms

3.8 U/V 3.6 3.4 0 50 100 150 t/s 200 250 300

25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

Vgs

Vds

(e) duty = 0.2

10 t/us

15

20

(f) duty = 0.1

10 t/us

15

20

Figure.9 Experimental waveforms of MOSFET switching voltage

1 I/A 0 -1 0 50 100 150 t/s 200 250 300

0.95 Eff

0.9

50

100

150 t/s

200

250

300

Figure. 8 Experiment results of balance current

To demonstrate the balance function, two battery cells (B1 and B2) are charged to a higher voltage (3.7V) than the other two battery cells (B3 and B4. 3.5V) before they are connected with the balance circuit. Fig. 8 shows the voltage and current waveforms. To get largest balance current, the duty ratio is set to 0.7. The current flow out of the higher voltage cells and flow into the lower voltage cells. Also, the balance efficiency is calculated by (17) and shown in Fig. 8. The energy transfer efficiency is above 90% with the highest efficiency up to 93%.

VI. CONCLUSION This paper proposed a battery balance circuit and analyzed its operating principle. The circuit can balance a number of battery cells using only one control signal. Energy transfers directly from higher voltage cells to lower voltage cells so the balance efficiency can be improved. As long as the multiwinding transformer is sufficiently symmetrical, the circuit can achieve favorable balance voltage regardless of any other components' asymmetry. A simple way to make a high symmetrical multi-winding transformer is also demonstrated and verified. Simulation and experiments shows the effectiveness of the proposed circuit. REFERENCES
[1] S. W. Moore and P. J. Schneider, "A review of cell equalization methods for lithium ion and lithium polymer battery systems," in SAE 2001 World Congress, Detroit, MI, 2001. L. Yuang-Shung and C. Guo-Tian, "Quasi-Resonant Zero-CurrentSwitching Bidirectional Converter for Battery Equalization Applications," Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 21, pp. 1213-1224, 2006.

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[6]

L. Yuang-Shung, et al., "Charge equalization using quasi-resonant converters in battery string for medical power operated vehicle application," in Power Electronics Conference (IPEC), 2010 International, 2010, pp. 2722-2728. N. H. Kutkut, et al., "Charge equalization for series connected battery strings," Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 31, pp. 562568, 1995. N. H. Kutkut, et al., "Design considerations for charge equalization of an electric vehicle battery system," Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 35, pp. 28-35, 1999. D. M. Divan, N. H. Kutkut, et al., "Battery charging using a transformer with a single primary winding and plural secondary windings," U.S. Patent 5,594,320, 1997.

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