Modularized Charge Equalization Converter for Hybrid Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Battery Stack

Modularized charge equalization converter for HEV lithium-ion battery cells is proposed in this paper, in which intra-module and inter-module charge equalization can be achieved at the same time. For intra-module charge equalization, the conventional flyback DC/DC converters of low power and small size are employed, in which all of the primary sides are coupled in parallel for selective charge of the specific under charged cell within the module. For inter-module charge equalization, the flyback DC/DC converters are also added, in which all the secondary windings are electrically linked in parallel for automatic charge balancing among the modules. An engineering sample of forty cells hiring the proposed cell balancing scheme is implemented and its experimental result shows that the proposed modularized charge equalization circuit has good cell balancing performance.