Battery Management System

The Georgia Tech Solar Jackets are participating in the 2012 American Solar Challenge in the summer of 2012. To this end, they need to build a solar car that uses solar cells and a battery pack as its primary power source.

A battery pack uses commercially available batteries that need to be kept within certain operational profiles to function efficiently. The violation of these conditions through faulty electronic components or unforeseen environmental factors could cause these batteries to lose functionality or explode. Without a battery management system, the driver would need to repeatedly check on the battery’s health himself.

The BMS acts as an external sensor suite that provides control and feedback to the host computer, but its primary function is to keep the battery pack in safe operating conditions or to disconnect the pack in emergencies. The objective of out team is to design and produce a final version of a working BMS prototype for the Solar Jackets. The design incorporates current and temperature sensing functionalities of the BMS module. It also completes the interface to the voltage measurement chips using SPI and to integrate it with the voltage, temperature and current sensors. Additionally, the communication with the rest of the car needs to be re-designed, and a new system to control the battery relay needs to be implemented. Finally, a printed circuit board (PCB) is designed to allow the BMS unit to be attached onto the container of each battery module in the solar car.