Protection circuitry and passive balancing for battery management systems part I

Battery management systems are of paramount importance to ensure safe functioning and optimal usage of the battery pack. This is the first of two papers that presents one of the key challenges in the design of such battery management systems viz. voltage protection. A unique voltage protection circuit to protect each cell against under-voltage and over-voltage is presented which can be customized to any battery of any voltage by following the design principles incorporated in this paper and can be validated via simulation as presented.