Automotive Battery Monitoring by Wireless Cell Sensors

Systems monitoring lead acid vehicle batteries (starter batteries and forklift batteries) currently only observe the whole battery at the outer clamps. Common Lithium battery management systems measure each cell using complex wired solutions. This causes the serious galvanic isolation problems. The research project BATSEN proposes the use of wireless batteries cell sensors. This allows the separated integration inside each cell, avoids complex wire and connector systems, but above all there is no galvanic isolation problem. Therefore wireless sensors shall monitor each battery cell by measuring voltage and temperature. A central battery control unit will be used to combine the cell measurements with a current measurement and estimates the State of Charge (SOC) and the State of Health (SOH) of the battery. As a first step wireless sensors for lead acid batteries will be developed. In the future the sensors will also be applied in lithium batteries for electric or hybrid vehicles.