Development of an Active Battery Management System for Spacecraft

Even though in the terrestrial sectors the technology developments of Battery Management Systems (BMS) are widespread, this is not the case in spacecraft, where they are relatively unexplored. This project, part of the Technology Development Elements (TDE) of the European Space Agency (ESA), presents a new BMS concept for spacecraft with enhanced performance, with not only monitoring and measurement functionalities, but also parameter calculation—such as estimations of the state of charge (SOC) and the state of health (SOH)—and cell balancing, in order to enlarge the lifespan of spacecraft batteries by providing active battery management. This BMS design separates the functionalities of the system in two units: one of them of small size directly mounted on the battery (Proximity Electronics), and the other serving as the core of BMS and interfacing with the spacecraft's on-board computer (OBC). The tests with a real battery have shown promising results.