Preliminary Design of a Smart Battery Controller for SLI Batteries” presented at 7 th Workshop for Battery Development

Automotive start, light, ignition (SLI) lead acid batteries are prone to capacity loss due to low temperatures, self-discharge, sulfation and shorting of plates. Monitoring and charge control of these batteries can be improved by using the concept of a smart battery system (SBS). In a SBS, battery data from sensors embedded in the battery package are acquired by a smart battery controller which processes this data, and transmits charge control information, to a central processor for effecting control actions. Since 1997, Villanova University and US Nanocorp, Inc. have collaborated on the development of a patented fuzzy logic-based method for determining the state-of-charge/ state-of-health (SOC/SOH) of a battery. In the present project, a smart battery controller is being developed which is optimized for using the fuzzy logic methodology for determining the SOC/SOH of an automotive SLI lead acid battery. The present paper reports on the preliminary design and testing of this fuzzy logic-based smart battery controller