An Open-Hardware and Low-Cost Maintenance Tool for Light-Electric-Vehicle Batteries

Andrea Carloni, Federico Baronti, Roberto Di Rienzo, Roberto Roncella and Roberto Saletti
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Andrea Carloni: Dipartimento Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Pisa, Via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Federico Baronti: Dipartimento Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Pisa, Via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Roberto Di Rienzo: Dipartimento Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Pisa, Via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Roberto Roncella: Dipartimento Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Pisa, Via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Roberto Saletti: Dipartimento Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Pisa, Via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-10

Abstract: The large increment expected in the diffusion of light-electric-vehicles will raise several issues that must be addressed to cope with this trend, including battery diagnostic and maintenance services. The battery system is the most expensive part in the majority of the e-mobility devices. Therefore, battery manufacturers tend to reduce the battery cost by using simple battery management systems that provide only basic safety features. Possible advanced functionalities are not implemented and the battery may lose performanceduring its use. Widely spread maintenance centers are thus required to support the mobility electrification process, but their diffusion is limited by the high cost ofprofessional battery characterization instruments. This work proposes an open-hardware low-cost battery maintenance tool architecture that can be used with common laboratory instruments. The tool is based on a relay-matrix and a battery monitor integrated circuit. It is able to completely characterize and optimize the state of a battery independently of the battery management system and also gives a figure of the individual aging of the battery cells. The work shows the architecture and the experimental validation of a 16-cells battery maintenance tool prototype. The results demonstrate that utilizing the tool brings the battery in the best possible state and identifies the degradation of the cells in terms of capacity and resistance.

Keywords: low-cost maintenance system; battery assistance; battery characterization; relay matrix; open hardware (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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