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KR-20260063094-A - Battery Pack

KR20260063094AKR 20260063094 AKR20260063094 AKR 20260063094AKR-20260063094-A

Abstract

The present invention relates to a battery pack comprising: a battery module including a plurality of battery cells connected in series or parallel and a plurality of first cell connectors connected in a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of battery cells; and a charging system including a plurality of cell charging units provided in a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of battery cells for charging the plurality of battery cells, and a plurality of second cell connectors provided in a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of first cell connectors for connecting the plurality of cell charging units and the plurality of first cell connectors, wherein the charging system further comprises a Battery Management System (BMS) that senses the voltage of each of the plurality of battery cells through the plurality of second cell connectors when the battery module is discharged and performs balancing of the plurality of battery cells based thereon, and a control unit that controls the plurality of cell charging units to charge the plurality of battery cells when the battery module is charged.

Inventors

  • 김윤호

Assignees

  • 김윤호

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20241030

Claims (7)

  1. In battery packs, A battery module comprising a plurality of battery cells connected in series or parallel, and a plurality of first cell connectors connected in a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of battery cells; and A charging system comprising a plurality of cell charging units provided to correspond one-to-one with the plurality of battery cells for charging the plurality of battery cells, and a plurality of second cell connectors provided to correspond one-to-one with the plurality of first cell connectors for connecting the plurality of cell charging units and the plurality of first cell connectors. The battery pack is characterized by further including a Battery Management System (BMS) that senses the voltage of each of the plurality of battery cells through the plurality of second cell connectors when the battery module is discharged and performs balancing of the plurality of battery cells based thereon, and a control unit that controls the plurality of cell charging units to charge the plurality of battery cells when the battery module is charged.
  2. In paragraph 1, A battery pack characterized in that, when charging the battery module, the control unit charges the plurality of cell charging units corresponding to the plurality of battery cells in parallel, and controls the intensity of the charging current of the plurality of cell charging units based on the state of the plurality of batteries.
  3. In paragraph 1, A battery pack characterized in that the control unit controls the charging speed of the plurality of cell charging units so that the variation in the charging amount of the plurality of battery cells is minimized when charging the battery module.
  4. In paragraph 1, A battery pack characterized by the above battery module further including an overcurrent protection unit to prevent short circuits during charging.
  5. In paragraph 1, A battery pack characterized by the above control unit turning off the balancing operation of the BMS when charging the battery module.
  6. In paragraph 1, A battery pack characterized by further including at least one of an on/off switch for a BMS and a balancing on/off switch in the above charging system.
  7. In paragraph 1, A battery pack characterized in that the plurality of battery cells include at least one of a nickel-metal hydride battery (Ni-MH), a lithium-ion battery (Li-ion), and a lithium-ion polymer battery (Li-ion polymer).

Description

Battery Pack The present invention relates to a battery pack, and more specifically, to a battery pack capable of charging control at the battery cell level. The main applications of secondary batteries are diverse, including IT and mobile products, power tools, eco-friendly vehicles such as hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and electric vehicles (EV), energy storage systems (ESS) that store surplus electricity produced from wind and solar power generation, electric bicycles, drones, and robots. These batteries are formed in the form of a battery pack by connecting multiple battery cells in series or parallel according to capacity. Conventional battery packs use a single charger and manually manage battery cell deviations, which leads to a problem where the battery pack's lifespan is shortened due to cell variations. In addition, existing battery packs have the problem that if even a single battery cell fails, it is difficult to identify which cell is defective, rendering the entire pack unusable, which shortens the lifespan and leads to significant resource waste. FIG. 1 is a control block diagram of a battery pack according to one embodiment of the present invention. Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, detailed descriptions of known functions or configurations that may obscure the essence of the present invention in the following description and the accompanying drawings are omitted. Additionally, it should be noted that identical components throughout the drawings are indicated by the same reference numerals whenever possible. The terms and words used in the specification and claims described below should not be interpreted as being limited to their ordinary or dictionary meanings, but should be interpreted in a meaning and concept consistent with the technical spirit of the invention, based on the principle that the inventor can appropriately define the concept of the terms to best describe his invention. Accordingly, the embodiments described in this specification and the configurations illustrated in the drawings are merely the most preferred embodiments of the invention and do not represent all of the technical spirit of the invention; therefore, it should be understood that various equivalents and modifications that can replace them may exist at the time of filing this application. FIG. 1 shows a battery pack (10) according to one embodiment of the present invention, comprising a battery module (100) configured in a modular form with a plurality of battery cells (110) connected in series or parallel, and a charging system (200) connected to the battery module (100) to control the charging and discharging of the battery module (100). Referring to FIG. 1, the battery module (100) includes a plurality of battery cells (110) connected in series or parallel, and a plurality of first cell connectors (120) connected to the plurality of battery cells (110) in a one-to-one correspondence. The number of battery cells (110) may be 2 to N, and FIG. 1 describes an example in which there are 4 battery cells (110) for convenience of explanation. Since there are 4 battery cells (110), 4 cell connectors are provided to correspond thereto. The battery cell (110) may include a nickel-metal hydride battery (Ni-MH), a lithium-ion battery (Li-ion), a lithium-ion polymer battery (Li-ion polymer), etc. The battery cell (110) may be connected in series or in parallel, and in the present invention, a series connection is used as an example. The charging system (200) includes a plurality of cell charging units (210) for charging a plurality of battery cells (110), and a plurality of second cell connectors (220) provided in a one-to-one correspondence with a plurality of first cell connectors (120). The battery module (100) and the charging system (200) are physically connected by a plurality of first cell connectors (110) and a plurality of second connectors (210) to form a single battery pack (10). A plurality of cell charging units (210) are provided in correspondence with a plurality of battery cells (110) to charge each corresponding plurality of battery cells (110). The cell charging units (210) may include an AC/DC converter that converts AC power supplied from the outside into DC, and a DC/DC converter that converts the converted DC voltage to a voltage level suitable for charging. As shown in FIG. 1, according to one embodiment of the present invention, four cell charging units (210) may be provided in correspondence with four battery cells (110). The second cell connector (220) is for connecting a plurality of cell charging units (210) to a plurality of battery cells (110) and is connected to a plurality of first cell connectors (120) provided in the battery module (100). In FIG. 1, since there are 4 first cell conn