A Professional Remote Interface Battery Management System for Remote Testing or Remote Education Laboratories

The proliferation of technological advancements, coupled with the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs), has led to a substantial surge in battery utilization. Battery systems represent intricate multi-domain systems with a significant potential for hazards. Effectively mitigating these hazards necessitates rigorous supervision. This supervision is orchestrated by battery management systems (BMS) to ensure the safe and optimal operation of the battery systems. Design engineers must be educated on hazards, diagnostic and fault protection solutions. The hazardous conditions inherent in testing or researching new battery technologies create an environment that is conducive to remote testing. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate and discuss the development of a graphics-based operating battery management system instrument. This system can manage several battery packs in a safe operation and can be controlled and supervised via a remote human interface. It is used as an educational tool to demonstrate the operation of a battery management system with various functions such as unsafe operation diagnostic, controller failure, safe switch off, battery charge, discharge, battery balancing, etc. These characteristics also designate it as a remote testing tool for hazardous environments). This remote-control system is constructed of various “off the shelf’ laboratory and industrial equipment that is specialized in one of the building block functions. Thus, the paper demonstrates how different manufactured modular components that consist of a variable energy source, variable electronic load, and BMS were assembled, and then interconnected via one main operations controller, running one GUI. These separate hardware instruments/devices consist of a NI cRIO with analogue and CAN modules as the main controller, controllable power supply, controllable Electronic Load, BMS, and four Lithium-Ion batteries in series. The methods discussed the steps that were taken to assemble, connect, and program the complete systems. The results show and discuss the operations and limitations of the assembled system.