A simple and upgradable autonomous battery aging evaluation and test system with capacity fading and AC impedance spectroscopy measurement

This paper presents a simple and upgradable autonomous battery aging evaluation and test system. This system can age the battery autonomously while performing measurements of several parameters of interest based on specifications entered by user. These parameters include but are not limited to capacity fading, AC impedance spectrum, temperature, State-Of-Charge (SOC), and State-Of-Health (SOH). The system can be used for evaluation of batteries and for research and can be developed using commonly available laboratory hardware and tools with relatively low cost. It can also be used in the future for preliminary evaluation of newly developed concepts such as those for SOC estimation, SOH estimation, and fault detection. The major parts of the system include a bi-directional DC-DC buck/boost power converter, a programmable microcontroller with ADC and PWM functions, a personal computer or a laptop with LabVIEW software, a DC Electronic Load, a DC power supply and a relay selector. Functions and hardware blocks can be added to the systems as needed. The paper also present sample results for capacity fading and impedance measurement of an aged battery.