An Online Battery Impedance Measurement Method Using DC-DC Power Converter Control

This paper presents a simple online impedance measurement method for electrochemical batteries, including lithium-ion, lead-acid, and nickel-metal-hydride chemistries. By using the proposed online impedance measurement method, there is no need to disconnect the battery from the system or to interrupt system operation, and there is no need to add ac signal injection circuits, costly response measurement, and analysis circuits/devices. In practical battery-powered systems, a power converter is usually used to interface the battery with the load for voltage/current regulation purposes. In this paper, through the control of the power converter and duty-cycle perturbation, the ac impedance of the battery can be determined. The proposed method provides a low-cost and practical solution for the online measurement of the ac impedance of batteries. Moreover, the proposed method can be either continuously or periodically performed without interrupting the normal operation of the battery system and the power converter. In addition, this paper provides an example where the obtained impedance data are utilized for online state-of-charge estimation of lithium-ion batteries. The proposed online impedance measurement method is validated by experiments conducted on a 2.6-Ah 18650-size lithium-ion battery interfaced to the load via a bidirectional dc-dc boost/buck converter.