Hardware design of high current prismatic smart battery packs

Smart battery (SB) architecture is defined as the inclusion of a half bridge converter at cell level in a Li-ion battery pack along with a wireless battery management system (BMS). This architecture provides additional degrees of freedom at cell level where a cell can be either inserted or bypassed in a pack. This leads to the pulsed operation that can improve the cycle life and advantages in pack monitoring and diagnostics. In this paper, the hardware design for a 50Ah prismatic SB cell and a pack design with 8 cells in series is detailed. Considering 2C as the highest current, the hardware design takes into account the power losses, PCB design aspects and an optimum configuration for the pack design. A detailed description of the design along with 3D models is provided. The proposed SB cell design can be extended to any other cell of different capacity, which is expected to be highly effective and efficient for a wide range of applications.