Automotive certified battery management system

The purpose of the project is to develop the first commercially available battery management system

(BMS) that is certified according to automotive standards for control systems and electronics used in

mass produced cars. This BMS is to be used with lithium-ion battery packs primarily in electric and hybrid

vehicles, but will also be applicable in industrial machines, ships, trains and power storage systems such

as for photo voltaic or grid batteries.

No current and commercially available BMS on the market fulfills the requirements needed to achieve

automotive certification, and this is an absolute requirement of most OEMs when they go into mass

production of their electric vehicles. Large OEMs have developed such systems in-house, but most OEMs

and their suppliers do not have the skills and means to do it.

Many OEMs and their suppliers have expressed an interest in Lithium Balance developing such an

automotive certified BMS, and they have contributed to the first design and prototypes as a proof-ofconcept

that was successfully tested in 2012. This concept is for a modular and flexible platform that can

be used with any battery, in any application from 3-1000V and at very low cost. It will have full redundancy

so it continues to operate and shuts down the battery safely in case of an accident. The measurement

accuracy will be within 3mV with one temperature sensor per cell and it measures SOC and SOH

accurately per cell.

The goal of this project is therefore to finalise the development of this BMS platform according to the

quality procedures for development and production demanded by the automotive standards. Two European

OEMs will participate in the project with design input and subsequent validation test as well as a long term

demonstration test in order to achieve the automotive certification of the new BMS.

This project is of direct relevance to the development targets of the EUDP Technology Strategies. The

lithium battery is the core technology that makes it possible to make electric vehicles of any practical use,

and it is not possible to use lithium batteries without a good BMS. As the main application will be for

electric and hybrid vehicles, there is an obvious link to the Energy Efficiency strategy and its related focus

on the transport area. Electric vehicles is the most energy efficient drive train technology available and

provided they are charged from wind energy it is the only drive train that gets close to 0 g/km CO2

emission. In addition electric vehicles appear a promising power storage solution, which is needed in the

future to allow higher deployment of renewable energy. The project will therefore also support the

Technology Strategies concerning Solar and Wind Energy.