Cylindrical Battery Fault Detection Under Extreme Fast Charging: A Physics-Based Learning Approach

High power operation in extreme fast charging significantly increases the risk of internal faults in Electric Vehicle batteries which can lead to accelerated battery failure. Early detection of these faults is crucial for battery safety and widespread deployment of fast charging. In this setting, we propose a real-time detection framework for battery voltage and thermal faults. A major challenge in battery fault detection arises from the effect of uncertainties originating from sensor inaccuracies, nominal aging, or unmodelled dynamics. Inspired by physics-based learning, we explore a detection paradigm that combines physics-based models, model-based detection observers, and data-driven learning techniques to address this challenge. Specifically, we construct the detection observers based on an experimentally identified electrochemical-thermal model, and subsequently design the observer tuning parameters following Lyapunov’s stability theory. Furthermore, we utilize Gaussian Process Regression technique to learn the model and measurement uncertainties which in turn aid the detection observers in distinguishing faults and uncertainties. Such uncertainty learning essentially helps suppressing their effects, potentially enabling early detection of faults. We perform simulation and experimental case studies on the proposed fault detection scheme verifying the potential of physics-based learning in early detection of battery faults.