Battery Identification With Cubic Spline and Moving Horizon Estimation for Mobile Robots

We propose a novel approach to track the state of charge (SoC) of batteries in mobile robots to improve their capabilities. The batteries’ status is critical to accomplish their mission, but limited battery life can be a challenge. Our methodology focuses on modeling and estimating the SoC of batteries through system identification and fractional-order models. These models are flexible and can adjust to transient responses, allowing for accurate estimation of battery characteristics. Specifically, we use cubic spline interpolation to obtain the open-circuit voltage (OCV) and the different resistors of the battery model. To estimate the SoC, we deploy a novel approach based on the moving horizon estimation (MHE) algorithm, which is suitable for handling poor initial estimation and constraints on the battery model. We consider the constraint on the peak discharging current, which can limit the performance of mobile robots in low-battery mode. We validate our approach by applying system identification and MHE to data from a mobile robot. The results show that our method accurately estimates the SoC despite poor initial values, enabling improved performance for mobile robots.