State Estimation Approach of Lithium-Ion Batteries by Simplified Ultrasonic Time-of-Flight Measurement

This work presents an approach to monitoring the State-Of-Charge of Lithium-Ion battery cells via piezo disc-based ultrasonic Time-Of-Flight measurement by measuring the traveling time of a mechanical pulse through the cell between two surface-mounted sensors. The main advantage of this approach is the simplicity and the resulting low cost, which makes it suitable for future application in battery management systems. In detail, the excitation of the piezo actuator is done using a single semiconductor switch instead of a power amplifier, and the received signal is processed with an amplifier and Schmitt-trigger combination to condition the signal for the microprocessor, which is part of a battery management system. Both the functionality and the limits of the design are evaluated with a high energy density Lithium-Ion pouch cell under different operational scenarios. Several parameters such as temperature, current rates, and excitation frequency are varied to prove the design concept. For validation purposes, an estimation function is generated and a real-world driving cycle applied. An estimation with an error of 1.29% of the Time-Of-Flight total value or 16.85% of the State-Of-Charge value under challenging conditions is achieved with the current setup.