Implementation of an Algorithm For Estimating Lead-Acid Battery State of Charge

In this paper, an algorithm for estimating lead-acid battery state of charge (SOC) is implemented. The algorithm, named “Improved Coulomb Counting Algorithm”, was developed within a master thesis project (M. M. Samolyk & J. Sobczak, “Development of an algorithm for estimating Lead-acid Battery State of Charge and State of Health”, M.S. thesis, Dept. Signal Processing, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden, 2013) with cooperation of a Swedish company – Micropower – Research and Development department. Currently used method at Micropower is Coulomb Counting; implemented algorithm compares coulomb counting method with open circuit voltage method and uses current, terminal voltage and temperature measurements to finally produce improvement for the very same coulomb counting method and get a better estimation of SOC. The algorithm was implemented on Micropower Access Battery Monitoring Unit (BMU) using C programming language, so that it can be tested in real time application of the regular battery operation. In the end specific gravity measurements were also presented to comparing the methods