A fully digital smart and fast lead-acid battery charge system

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation of a fully digital smart charging system for traction lead-acid batteries for electric vehicles (EV). The charger uses a fast charge strategy, through the combination of constant high current charge periods with pulsant current charge periods. This charge system takes into account the actual battery charge state as well as the battery record, referred to previous charges and discharges. To obtain this smart charging system, it is necessary to develop a fast battery charge control system, a power source and a battery data acquisition system to periodically store the most important battery parameters during the discharge process. The fast charging of electric vehicle batteries promises a technically feasible approach to increase customer acceptability of electric vehicles (EV), and its main objective includes short recharge times, high charge efficiencies and improved battery cycle life. The aim of the present work is the development of a smart charging strategy integrated with a digital data acquisition system implemented with a XC40010E FPGA from Xilinx.