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EP-4343346-B1 - INTEGRATED STACKABLE BATTERY EMULATOR FOR BATTERY PACK SIMULATION

EP4343346B1EP 4343346 B1EP4343346 B1EP 4343346B1EP-4343346-B1

Inventors

  • DIXON, William M.
  • SHAFFER, Benjamin D.

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20230911

Claims (15)

  1. A battery emulator (100), comprising: an input voltage source (104); an adjustable voltage regulator (112) coupled to the input voltage source (104); a user control device (120) coupled to the adjustable voltage regulator (112) and configured to control an output of the adjustable voltage regulator (112); an additional adjustable voltage regulator; and voltage isolation circuitry configured to provide voltage isolation between the output of the adjustable voltage regulator (112) and the output of the additional adjustable voltage regulator, wherein the output of the adjustable voltage regulator (112) emulates a first cell of a battery and the output of the additional adjustable voltage regulator emulates a second cell of the battery, wherein the battery emulator is characterised in that the input voltage source (104): is configured as a floating voltage source, wherein no terminal of the input voltage source (104) is coupled to either an absolute reference ground or a common ground; or comprises a virtual ground, wherein a terminal of the input voltage source (104) is maintained at a steady reference potential without being connected directly to a reference potential.
  2. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in claim 1, further comprising an additional user control device, wherein the additional user control device is coupled to the adjustable voltage regulator (112) and configured to control an output of the additional adjustable voltage regulator;
  3. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user control device (120) is also coupled to the additional adjustable voltage regulator, the user control device (120) further configured to control an output of the additional adjustable voltage regulator.
  4. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the adjustable voltage regulator( 112) is a linear regulator.
  5. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the user control device is a manual control device configured to be operated by a user.
  6. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the user control device (120) is integrated into a computing device configured to execute a program of instructions which controls the output of the adjustable voltage regulator(112).
  7. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the input voltage source (104) is configured such that a terminal/node of the input voltage source (104) is maintained at a steady reference potential without being connected to the reference potential.
  8. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, further comprising a battery management system coupled to the output of the adjustable voltage regulator (112) and the output of the additional adjustable voltage regulator.
  9. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the voltage isolation circuitry is configured to provide galvanic isolation and prevent current flow between the output of the adjustable voltage regulator (112) and the additional adjustable voltage regulator.
  10. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the voltage isolation circuitry includes a transformer.
  11. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the voltage isolation circuitry includes at least one of a capacitor, opto-isolator, relay, or LED-phototransistor pair.
  12. System (200, 300) of battery emulators, the system comprising a plurality of battery emulators (100) according to one or more of the preceding claims and configured to emulate multiple battery cell voltages of a battery pack.
  13. System (200, 300) according to claim 12, wherein each battery emulator (100) imitates or replicates a single cell of a battery.
  14. The battery emulator as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the input voltage source (104) is configured as the floating voltage source.
  15. The battery emulator (100) as claimed in one or more of claims 1-3, wherein the input voltage source (104) comprises the virtual ground.

Description

The present invention generally relates to the field of circuit design emulators, and more particularly, to a battery emulator. Battery packs, such as rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs, are used in an ever-increasing array of electrically-powered products. Beyond the battery substrate itself, battery packs rely on a host of software, firmware, and electronic circuitry to monitor and/or control operation of the battery pack. Due to the electrical nature of the battery pack, care is required when designing and applying changes to the software, firmware, and/or electrical circuits for the battery pack. Conventional development and testing of battery packs require the use of a real, or actual battery pack which carries higher risk of fire due to accidental abuse of the battery pack. Additionally, conventional development and testing of battery packs require a purchase of a set of isolated, adjustable laboratory supplies, or a multiple-output power supply that allows user adjustment necessary to perform proper testing of a battery pack. Consequently, conventional development and testing of a battery pack requires more time, more expense, and higher risk of electrical shock to the user and higher risk of fire/explosions when the battery pack fails or is otherwise compromised. Accordingly, there is a need for a battery emulator that permits the development and testing of battery software, firmware, and/or circuitry with lowered cost and lowered risk of shock, explosion, fire, or other dangerous conditions. US 2012/119765 A1 relates to a battery emulation device for simulating a battery cell voltage at a terminal of a battery control unit in accordance with a setpoint value. Further battery emulators may be found in Alexandre Collet et al.::"Multi-cell battery emulator for advanced battery management system benchmarking" INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS (ISIE), 2011 IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON, IEEE, 27 June 2011 (2011-06-27), Buccolini Luca et al.: "Cell Battery Emulator for Hardware-in-the-Loop BMS Test", 2018 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND 2018 IEEE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL POWER SYSTEMS EUROPE (EEEIC / I&CPS EUROPE), IEEE, 12 June 2018 (2018-06-12), Messier Pascal et al.: "Multi-Cell Emulation for Battery Management System Validation", 2018 IEEE VEHICLE POWER AND PROPULSION CONFERENCE (VPPC), IEEE, 27 August 2018 (2018-08-27), Hogerl Tobias et al.: "Battery Emulation for Battery Modular Multilevel Management (BM3) Converters and Reconfigurable Batteries with Series, Parallel and Bypass Function", 2021 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND 2021 IEEE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL POWER SYSTEMS EUROPE (EEEIC / I&CPS EUROPE), IEEE, 7 September 2021 (2021-09-07). Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a battery emulator defined in claim 1 that permits the development and testing of battery software, firmware, and/or circuitry with lowered risk of shock, explosion, fire, or other dangerous conditions. The battery emulator includes a single input voltage source that provides an input voltage to an adjustable voltage regulator. The battery emulator further includes a user control device coupled to the adjustable voltage regulator and configured to control an output of the adjustable voltage regulator, wherein the output of an adjustable voltage regulator configured to replicate an output voltage of a single battery cell of a multi-cell battery. The battery emulator further includes voltage isolation circuity which isolates the input voltage and/or output voltage from an adjustable voltage regulator, preventing them from interfering with the user control device. Additionally, the voltage isolation circuitry may allow stacking of a plurality of adjustable voltage regulators coupled to the one, or more user control devices, whereby the single input voltage source may be employed to provide multiple output voltages through virtual grounding and which may replicate the multiple output voltages provided by a multi-cell battery. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not necessarily restrictive of the present invention. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate subject matter of the invention. Together, the descriptions and the drawings serve to explain the principles of the invention. The numerous advantages of the invention may be better understood by those skilled in the art by reference to the accompanying figures. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a battery emulator in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention.FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a system of battery emulators that is configured to emulate multiple battery cell voltages of a battery pack, in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention.FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a sy