In-situ electronics and communications for intelligent energy storage

Lithium-ion batteries are increasingly common in high-power, safety-critical applications such as aerospace, spaceflight, automotive and grid storage. The voltage and power specifications of such applications usually require large numbers of individual cells combined in series and parallel to form a battery pack. It is then the role of the Battery Management System (BMS) to monitor these cells condition and ensure they remain within safe operating limits. To minimise cost and complexity, it is typical to monitor only a fraction of the cells in a battery pack. This creates potential safety and reliability issues and requires conservative limits imposed on the overall system to ensure safe operation. This is insufficient in high-power, safety-critical applications and thus alternative approaches to battery management are required. Here we demonstrate the development of novel miniature electronic devices for incorporation in-situ at a cell-level during manufacture. This approach enables local cell-to-cell and cell-to-BMS data communication of sensor data without the need for additional wiring infostructure within a battery module assembly. The electronics firmware and hardware integration within the cell's electrode stack is demonstrated to function after triggering post cell formation and through cycling and electrochemical impedance analysis. This work shows that the proposed approach has a negligible impact on the cells' performance and highlights a new technique for active monitoring of the cell's in-situ conditions. This research will enable new methods of cells characterization and monitoring for optimum electrochemical and thermal performance while improving system safety. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC

Automated summary

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in high-power, safety-critical applications. However, the current monitoring methods for battery packs have limitations in terms of cost and complexity. This research presents a novel approach of incorporating miniature electronic devices in cells during manufacturing, enabling local data communication without additional wiring. The findings demonstrate that this approach has negligible impact on the cells' performance and offers a new technique for active monitoring of cell conditions.