A Selective Voltage Measurement System for Series Connected Battery Packs

A method has been developed to measure the voltages of individual batteries used in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) battery packs using a new selective battery measurement system. This system consists of a voltage measurement circuit that measures battery voltages using a set of electromechanical relays connected in a matrix formation. A sixteen-bit microcontroller was used for controlling the operation of the voltage measurement unit. The system was designed for a pack of twelve series connected 12 V lead-acid batteries. The proposed method was found to be compact and is a universal one. Moreover, the set-up was very effective and produced good accuracy