Analysis, Design, and Experimental Validation of a Primary Side Current-Sensing Flyback Converter for Use in a Battery Management System

The purpose of the presented flyback converter is to equalise the voltage between the cells in a series string within a battery pack providing an active cell-balancing system. This would be an important part of a battery management system (BMS) for charging li-ion batteries in electric vehicles. The converter is based on primary side current sensing, where the conventional feedback circuit is omitted. The purpose of this converter is to improve efficiency by decreasing losses and to increase battery power density by decreasing the number of elements which constitute the power electronics; these are important factors for the future development of electric vehicle battery packs. Analysis of the circuit and the design procedure of the DC-DC flyback converter with primary current sensing is presented in this paper. Finally, several experimental converters have been built and tested to validate the authors' approach.