WO2020244588A1 - Battery management system, battery management method, power source module, and unmanned aerial vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

A battery management system, a battery management method, a power source module (18), and an unmanned aerial vehicle. The battery management system comprises: a charging circuit switch (11), the charging circuit switch (11) being arranged between a charging power source (12) and a battery pack (14) to form a charging circuit; an equalisation circuit (13), the equalisation circuit (13) being used for equalising the battery pack (14); and a microprocessor (15), the microprocessor (15) comprising a battery detection interface (19a) used for reading battery parameters, a switch control interface (19b) used for controlling the conduction or disconnection of the charging circuit switch (11), and an equalisation control interface (19c) used for controlling the operation of the equalisation circuit (13). The management system has a high degree of integration and good reliability, and can implement charging management and equalisation control for a plurality of batteries, solving the problems of battery management and battery equalisation. In addition, by means of a direct reading method, the impact of the voltage drop between cell and port on voltage detection precision can be avoided, and the equalisation effects are good, increasing the safety and service life of the batteries.

Description

Battery management system, battery management method, power module and drone

This application claims the priority of a Chinese patent application filed with the Chinese Patent Office, the application number is 201910485854.6, and the application title is "Battery Management System, Battery Management Method, Power Module and UAV" on June 5, 2019, and its entire contents Incorporated in this application by reference.

Technical field

This application relates to the technical field of charging management, and in particular to a battery management system, a battery management method, a power module, and a drone.

Background technique

At present, under the influence of various factors such as conversion efficiency, clean and sustainable energy, equipment volume, and implementation cost, more and more mobile vehicles, such as drones and automobiles, have begun to choose electricity as their power source. However, limited by current battery technology, devices that use electricity as a power source can usually only meet the requirements of these mobile vehicles for cruising range and moving speed by stacking or increasing the number of batteries.

In the case of a large number of batteries, there will naturally be differences in the operating states of different batteries. In order to ensure the safety of the battery during charging and improve the service life and reliability of the battery, corresponding adjustments must be made to the specific conditions of each battery. For example, a lithium-ion battery has a greater risk when it is deeply discharged or overcharged, and it is not conducive to prolonging its service life.

However, the orderly management and charge balance for multiple batteries or cells is a complicated logical control process, and it is difficult to achieve satisfactory results. Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide an integrated comprehensive control scheme to achieve the balance of multiple batteries or multiple cells during charging and discharging.

Summary of the invention

In order to solve the above technical problems, the embodiments of the present invention provide a battery management system, a power management method, a power supply module, and an unmanned aerial vehicle that can perform charge management and balance control on multiple batteries, and are highly integrated.

In order to solve the above technical problems, embodiments of the present invention provide the following technical solutions: a battery management system. The battery management system includes:

A charging loop switch, the charging loop switch is arranged between the charging power supply and the battery pack to form a charging loop; an equalizing circuit, the equalizing circuit is used to balance the battery pack; a microprocessor, the microprocessor includes A battery detection interface for reading battery parameters, a switch control interface for controlling the on or off of the charging circuit switch, and an equalization control interface for controlling the operation of the equalization circuit

Optionally, the battery parameters include: voltage, state of charge, and power of each cell in the battery pack.

Optionally, the battery management system further includes a temperature detection circuit; the temperature detection circuit is used to detect temperature information of the battery pack; the microprocessor further includes a temperature detection interface for reading the temperature information.

Optionally, one charging loop switch, one equalizing circuit, and one temperature detecting circuit constitute a battery management component; each of the battery management components corresponds to a battery pack and is connected to a battery pack.

Optionally, the microprocessor is specifically configured to: obtain the temperature information through the temperature detection interface; when the temperature information is greater than a preset temperature threshold, turn off the charging circuit switch.

Optionally, the battery management system further includes a multi-channel signal selector; the multi-channel signal selector includes several input terminals and output terminals; each of the input terminals is used to communicate with a battery pack; the output The terminal is connected with the battery detection interface of the microprocessor.

Optionally, the microprocessor is further used to determine whether a safety alarm has occurred in the battery pack; if so, turn off the charging circuit switch; if not, compare the power of each battery pack; control the battery with the highest power The charging circuit switch corresponding to the battery pack is turned on.

Optionally, the microprocessor device is further configured to: when the pressure difference of the battery pack is greater than a preset pressure difference threshold, start the equalization circuit to equalize the battery pack; When the pressure difference is less than the preset pressure difference threshold, the operation of the equalization circuit is stopped.

Optionally, the microprocessor is further configured to: when detecting that the battery pack is inserted, control the charging circuit switch to be turned on for a preset time; and read the information of the inserted battery pack through the battery detection interface Battery parameters.

To solve the above technical problems, the embodiments of the present invention also provide the following technical solutions: a power supply module. The power supply module includes: a charging power supply for providing charging voltage and charging current for the battery packs and the battery management system as described above; the battery management system is integrated on the charging power supply for controlling the supply to each battery pack The charging voltage and charging current.

Optionally, the charging power supply is a charger or a DC power supply with voltage conversion capability.

To solve the above technical problems, the embodiments of the present invention provide the following technical solutions: an unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone includes:

The main body of the fuselage is provided with a power system for driving the operation of the drone, a battery compartment with a preset volume and a charging interface; a plurality of battery packs, the battery packs are connected in series by a plurality of rechargeable batteries It is installed in the battery compartment and used to supply power to the power system through a corresponding power supply interface; the battery management system as described above, the battery management system is housed in the body of the fuselage, and The power supply interface in the battery compartment is connected to the charging interface.

To solve the above technical problems, the embodiments of the present invention provide the following technical solutions: a battery management method. The battery management method is executed by a microprocessor, and is used to perform charge balance management on two or more battery packs, and the method includes:

Read the battery parameters of the battery pack; compare the power of each battery pack; control the charging of the battery pack with the highest power; and determine whether the pressure difference of the battery pack is greater than a preset pressure difference threshold; if so, Then the battery pack is equalized, and if not, the battery pack is stopped.

Optionally, the reading the battery parameters of the battery pack includes: detecting whether the battery pack is inserted; when detecting that the battery pack is inserted, controlling the charging circuit switch to be turned on for a preset time to Activating the battery pack; and reading battery parameters of the battery pack.

Optionally, the battery parameters of the battery pack include: the voltage, state of charge, and power of each cell in the battery pack.

Optionally, the method further includes: determining whether a safety alarm has occurred in the battery pack, and if so, disconnecting the charging circuit of the battery pack; if not, continuing to charge the battery pack.

Optionally, the method further includes: obtaining temperature information of the battery pack; determining whether the temperature information is greater than a preset temperature threshold; if so, disconnecting the charging circuit of the battery pack; if not, continuing The battery pack is charged.

Compared with the prior art, the battery management system, power management method, and power module provided by the embodiments of the present invention are highly integrated, have good reliability, can realize charge management and balance control of multiple batteries, and solve battery management and battery management. Problems in equilibrium.

Moreover, the direct reading method avoids the influence of the voltage drop between the battery cell and the port on the voltage detection accuracy, and the equalization effect is good, which can increase the safety and service life of the battery.

Description of the drawings

One or more embodiments are exemplified by the pictures in the corresponding drawings. These exemplified descriptions do not constitute a limitation on the embodiments. Elements with the same reference numbers in the drawings are represented as similar elements. Unless otherwise stated, the figures in the attached drawings do not constitute a limitation of scale.

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a battery management system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

2 is a schematic diagram of a battery management system according to another embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a schematic diagram of the structure of a microprocessor according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a method flowchart of a battery management method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a method flowchart of a battery management method according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 6 is a flowchart of a method for charge balance management according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

In order to facilitate the understanding of the present invention, the present invention will be described in more detail below with reference to the drawings and specific embodiments. It should be noted that when an element is expressed as being "fixed to" another element, it can be directly on the other element, or there can be one or more elements in between. When an element is said to be "connected" to another element, it can be directly connected to the other element, or there may be one or more intervening elements in between. The terms "upper", "lower", "inner", "outer", "bottom", etc. used in this specification indicate the orientation or positional relationship based on the orientation or positional relationship shown in the drawings, and are only for the convenience of describing the present invention. The invention and simplified description do not indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore cannot be understood as a limitation of the present invention. In addition, the terms "first", "second", "third", etc. are only used for descriptive purposes, and cannot be understood as indicating or implying relative importance.

Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used in this specification have the same meaning as commonly understood by those skilled in the technical field of the present invention. The terms used in the specification of the present invention in this specification are only for the purpose of describing specific embodiments, and are not used to limit the present invention. The term "and/or" as used in this specification includes any and all combinations of one or more related listed items.

In addition, the technical features involved in the different embodiments of the present invention described below can be combined with each other as long as they do not conflict with each other.

Rechargeable battery refers to a device that can be used repeatedly to realize the conversion between chemical energy and electrical energy, so as to store a certain amount of electrical energy and provide corresponding output voltage or current. Among them, lithium batteries are widely used as rechargeable batteries due to their properties and unique advantages.

Due to power and voltage limitations, lithium batteries need to be used in series in most application scenarios to provide sufficient power. In this specification, a battery composed of multiple lithium batteries connected in series can also be called a "battery pack". Each lithium battery in the battery pack is called a "cell".

Cells in the same battery pack have certain differences in battery properties such as capacity, internal resistance, and charge and discharge efficiency. These differences will have a very significant impact on the effective capacity of the entire battery pack and the safety of charging and discharging. It is necessary to use a sophisticated power management system to detect, control and adjust each cell to ensure the consistency of different cells.

In this manual, the charging process to keep different cells in the same battery pack consistent during charging and avoid overcharging and other safety-endangering problems is called "equalization" or "equalization charging". That is, "equal charging" refers to the activation of a series of detection, control, or adjustment methods during charging to perform orderly control of each cell in the battery pack.

Fig. 1 is a battery management system provided by an embodiment of the present invention. In order to reduce the volume of the battery pack and increase the flexibility of use, the battery management system of the embodiment of the present invention is independently arranged outside the battery pack. As shown in FIG. 1, the battery management system includes: a charging circuit switch 11, an equalization circuit 13 and a microprocessor 15.

Wherein, as shown in FIG. 1, the charging circuit switch 11 is arranged between the charging power source 12 and the battery pack 14 to form a charging circuit. The charging loop switch 11 can specifically adopt any type of controllable switching device, and it only needs to have two working states of on and off, such as a MOS tube or an electromagnetic relay with a suitable bias voltage.

Based on different applications, the charging power supply 12 may be any type of downstream power supply equipment that functions to supply electric energy, such as an AC/DC conversion charger, a battery pack that provides DC power, or a connection interface derived from a mains network such as 220V.

In actual operation, when the charging circuit switch 11 is turned on, the aforementioned charging circuit is also turned on. The charging power supply 12 can provide the battery pack 14 with corresponding charging voltage and current through the charging circuit to realize the charging of the battery pack. When the charging circuit switch 11 is turned off, the connection between the charging power source 12 and the battery pack 14 will be interrupted and the battery pack cannot be continuously supplied with electric energy, and the charging of the battery pack will be stopped.

Please continue to refer to FIG. 1, the power management system and the charging power supply 12 form a complete power module 18, which can charge multiple battery packs in an orderly manner. In other embodiments, all the devices in the dashed frame 18 can be integrated into the same device. That is, the power management system can be integrated on the charging power supply 12 as one of the functional modules of the power module.

The equalization circuit 13 is used to equalize the battery pack. Specifically, any type of circuit structure composed of one or more electrical components can be selected and used according to actual needs. For example, based on a load consumption balancing strategy, the balancing circuit may be composed of a resistor connected in parallel with each cell and its control switch.

When the voltage of one of the battery-saving cores is too high during charging, the resistance is connected through the control switch, so that the charging current is shunted by the resistance to achieve a balanced effect.

The microprocessor 15 is the control core of the entire power management system, which can execute one or more logical judgment steps, and realize the interaction with external devices (such as controlling the equalization circuit and controlling the charging circuit switch) through the corresponding interface.

In this embodiment, the microprocessor 15 at least includes: a battery detection interface 19a for reading battery parameters, a switch control interface 19b for controlling the on or off of the charging circuit switch, and a switch control interface 19b for controlling the The equalization control interface 19c for the operation of the equalization circuit.

This battery parameter is the characteristic parameter of each battery cell during charging. According to changes in actual control strategies and usage scenarios, it may include one or more characteristic parameters, which are collected by corresponding sensors or detection circuits and provided to the microprocessor 15 through the battery detection interface.

In some embodiments, the battery parameters may include the voltage, state of charge, and power of each cell in the battery pack. Among them, voltage refers to the potential difference between the positive and negative electrodes of the battery, which is a core indicator that needs to be paid attention to when charging. For example, when charging, the voltage of the lithium-ion battery cannot exceed the design indicator, otherwise it will easily affect the life and cause safety accidents.

The state of charge is a parameter that characterizes the safety of the battery during charging. It can be determined by a comprehensive evaluation of one or more evaluation indicators, reflecting whether the battery cell remains stable during the charging process. Electricity can be the total amount of electric energy currently stored by the battery, which can be represented by a variety of different electrical parameters. The power level reflects the degree to which the battery cell is fully charged. In some embodiments, the power of the battery cell may be represented by the voltage of the battery cell. For example, when the voltage of the battery cell reaches a set voltage threshold, it indicates that the battery power is fully charged.

In other embodiments, the aforementioned battery parameters may be directly provided by the battery pack to the battery management system. Corresponding detection circuits and logic processing chips are integrated inside the battery pack 14, so as to realize the intelligence of the battery pack. In this manual, the intelligent battery pack is referred to as "smart battery" for short.

Compared with the traditional battery management system set outside the battery, it directly uses the interface to read the information provided by the smart battery, and there is no voltage drop caused by the connection lead of the battery cell and the battery management system port, which can improve the battery The detection accuracy of voltage can realize the balance between each battery cell more accurately.

It should be noted that the battery management system shown in FIG. 1 is only used for general description, and does not limit the complete battery management system. Those skilled in the art can further add or subtract one or more functional modules according to actual needs to provide more functions based on the integrated power management function of the present invention.

For example, a display module such as an LED display screen or LCD display can be further added to the equalization circuit to help the user interact, so that the user can observe or intuitively understand the current equalization state.

In other embodiments, the equalization circuit can also be equipped with additional temperature control devices to help quickly dissipate heat and avoid temperature rise caused by heat accumulation. These temperature control devices can be fans, heat sinks, or water-cooled heat sinks.

Fig. 2 is a battery management system provided by another embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, compared with the battery management system shown in FIG. 1, in this embodiment, in addition to the functional modules shown in FIG. 1, the battery management system further includes a temperature detection circuit 16. Correspondingly, the microprocessor also includes a corresponding temperature detection interface 19d.

The temperature detection circuit 16 is used to detect the temperature information of the battery pack. Specifically, any type of circuit structure can be used to detect the temperature of the battery pack. For example, the temperature detection circuit can be composed of a temperature-sensitive semiconductor resistor and a constant current source.

During detection, the resistance value of the semiconductor resistor is affected by the temperature change of the battery pack, and the constant current source provides a constant current for the semiconductor resistor, so that the voltage across the semiconductor resistor changes with the temperature.

The temperature detection interface 19d of the microprocessor is connected to the temperature detection circuit 16 (either directly or indirectly), and is used to receive data information provided by the temperature detection circuit 16 (for example, the voltage information in the foregoing embodiment).

In actual use, a battery management system usually needs to manage two or more battery packs. In order to facilitate simultaneous management of multiple battery packs, in some embodiments, the battery management system is divided into multiple battery management components.

Each battery management component includes an equalization circuit, a temperature detection circuit and a charging loop switch, so that the microprocessor can independently control and adjust each battery pack.

The specific number of battery management components can be determined according to actual needs, such as two or three. In other embodiments, the battery management system may also have a certain expansion capability, allowing the expansion and addition of more battery management components on the basis of the original battery management components to meet the requirements of more usage scenarios.

Those skilled in the art can understand that with the increase in the number of battery management components, the number of battery detection interfaces required by the microprocessor in order to be compatible with these battery management components needs to increase accordingly. However, due to considerations such as the package structure and design cost of the microprocessor, the number of interfaces available for the microprocessor is always limited.

In a preferred embodiment, in order to solve the problem of the number of interfaces described above, as shown in FIG. 2, the battery management system may further include a multi-channel signal selector 17.

The multi-channel signal selector 17 is an integrated connector with several input terminals 171 and output terminals 172. There is a switch device inside, and one of the input terminals is selected to be connected with the output terminal to establish a data information delivery path to realize the process of selecting a channel.

Specifically, any type of circuit structure with a switching selection function can be used to realize the multi-channel signal selector. The structure and design principle of the hub are well-known to those skilled in the art, and will not be repeated here.

As shown in FIG. 2, during operation, each input terminal 171 is used to communicate with a battery pack; the output terminal 172 is connected to the battery detection interface 151 of the microprocessor. In this way, the microprocessor only needs to set up a battery detection interface to connect to multiple smart batteries and read relevant parameters from the smart batteries.

As recorded in one or more embodiments above, the microprocessor 15 as the master control is the core of the realization of the entire power management system. It can be implemented by using any type of electronic computing platform or system-on-chip, for example, the microprocessor architecture provided by the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 3.

As shown in FIG. 3, the microprocessor may include: a computing core 151 and a storage medium 152. Among them, the computing core 151 and the storage medium 152 are connected by a bus to establish a communication connection between the two. The one or more interfaces 19 (namely, 19a, 19b, 19c, and 19d) disclosed in the above embodiments are connectors or pins derived from the bus.

The computing core 151 is a single-threaded or multi-threaded processor of any type, and is composed of a series of logic circuits for acquiring data, performing logic operation functions, and issuing operation processing results.

The storage medium 152 is used as a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, such as at least one magnetic disk storage device, a flash memory device, a distributed storage device remotely provided with respect to the processor 21, or other non-volatile solid-state storage devices.

The storage medium 152 may have a program storage area for storing non-volatile computer executable program instructions, which are called by the computing core 151 to make the computing core 151 execute one or more steps to realize the management and control of the battery pack. In other embodiments, the storage medium 152 may also have a data storage area for storing the operation processing result issued and output by the operation core 151.

The interface 19 can be an input or output interface, which can provide sampling data (including battery cell voltage and temperature information) for the computing core 151 and output control commands (including controlling the charging circuit switch to turn off or turn on).

The battery management system provided by the embodiment of the present invention uses a microprocessor to read the voltage of the battery cells inside the battery, thereby avoiding the problem of voltage drop, and can more accurately balance each battery cell. In addition, the battery management system can also perform charge management and balance control on multiple batteries, which is a comprehensive battery charging and balance management program. Its high degree of integration reduces the weight and space of related products to a certain extent, and solves the problems of battery management and battery balance.

In actual operation, the microprocessor 15 can specifically execute a series of method steps to complete the orderly control of the battery pack. 4 is a method flowchart of a battery management method executed by a microprocessor according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Figure 4, the method includes:

401. Detect whether a battery pack is inserted.

The battery pack insertion refers to the act of putting a new battery pack into the device to establish an electrical connection with the battery management system. After the charging power is normally connected, the battery management system will start to run, and the default setting is in the standby state. It can detect whether there is a battery pack inserted in a specific way, such as an interrupt signal or periodic scanning.

402. When detecting that the battery pack is inserted, control the charging circuit switch to conduct for a preset time.

After the battery pack is inserted, the microprocessor will be activated and start to call the corresponding computer instruction program to complete a series of method steps. After the charging power is connected, each battery pack may still be in a dormant state. In order to read the battery parameters of each smart battery pack, the microprocessor can control the charging loop switch to turn on briefly to activate the smart battery pack.

The preset time is a very short time, and only needs to be able to activate the battery pack, for example, it can be set to 1s.

403. Read the battery parameters of the inserted battery pack through the battery detection interface.

After the smart battery pack is activated, some corresponding battery parameters will be transferred to the microprocessor for reading. Specifically, the battery parameter may be the voltage corresponding to each battery cell.

In some embodiments, the microprocessor may switch the connection mode of the multi-channel signal selector in a specific order or sequence in a polling manner, thereby sequentially reading the battery parameters of each battery pack. In other embodiments, the microprocessor may also adopt other control methods, using a multi-channel signal selector to obtain the battery parameters of each battery pack.

404. Determine whether a safety alarm has occurred in the battery pack. If yes, go to step 405. If not, go to step 406.

Based on some preset judgment criteria, the microprocessor can also judge whether the battery pack has a safety alarm. In this way, the additional safety alarm judgment step can prevent the battery pack from being charged under abnormal conditions.

The specific method for the microprocessor to determine whether a security alarm occurs depends on the computer software program instructions written into the storage medium. It can be set or adjusted according to the actual situation.

405. Turn off the charging circuit switch.

The microprocessor can control the charging circuit switch to open through the corresponding control interface. The specific control method actually depends on the charging circuit switch used. For example, when the charging circuit switch is a MOS tube, the microprocessor can change the on or off state of the MOS tube by changing the gate control information output by the interface.

406. Compare the power of each battery pack.

The microprocessor can use the interface to read the power information of the battery packs to sort the battery packs to form a battery pack sequence arranged according to the level of power. Specifically, the battery pack with the highest power can be arranged first or last.

407. Control the charging loop switch corresponding to the battery pack with the highest power to be turned on for charging.

According to the formed battery pack sequence, in this embodiment, the microprocessor can preferentially charge the battery pack with the highest power. As shown in Figure 1, whether each battery pack is charged is controlled by the corresponding charging loop switch. Moreover, each battery pack can be independently controlled.

408. During charging, determine whether the pressure difference of the battery pack is greater than a preset pressure difference threshold. If yes, execute step 409, if not, execute step 410.

The voltage difference of a battery pack refers to the difference between the cell voltages in the same battery pack. Excessive pressure difference indicates that the battery pack has a longer consistency and is prone to overcharge of a certain battery. Those skilled in the art can understand that the pressure difference of the battery pack needs to be within a certain threshold range to ensure the battery performance, and no significant safety accidents will occur.

The microprocessor ensures that the pressure difference of the battery pack is within a controllable range through a preset pressure difference threshold. The pressure difference threshold is an empirical value, which can be set by a technician according to the actual situation.

In other embodiments, the storage medium of the microprocessor may also record multiple differential pressure thresholds, and automatically load the corresponding differential pressure threshold according to the inserted battery pack to execute the judgment process in step 408.

409. Start the equalization circuit to equalize the battery pack.

As disclosed in the embodiment of the present invention, the equalization circuit is a functional circuit used to ensure the consistency of battery charging. Therefore, the microprocessor can activate the corresponding equalization circuit when the pressure difference is too large, so as to control the pressure difference to an appropriate range.

410. Stop the operation of the equalization circuit.

As a guaranteed functional circuit, the activation of the equalization circuit usually has an adverse effect on the battery charging efficiency. For example, when the load-type balancing circuit starts, it will consume part of the electric energy, resulting in a drop in efficiency. Therefore, when the pressure difference is small and there is no significant charging safety risk, the microprocessor can stop the operation of the equalization circuit to improve the efficiency of battery charging.

It should be noted that the method flow shown in FIG. 4 is only used to illustrate the general steps that the microprocessor can perform, and is not used to limit the present invention. Based on the method flow shown in FIG. 4, those skilled in the art can also add or subtract one or more steps to obtain different embodiments according to actual needs or different design strategies.

For example, when a load-type balancing circuit is used, due to resistance heating, the microprocessor can further detect the temperature of the balancing circuit, and stop the operation of the balancing circuit in time when the temperature of the balancing circuit is too high.

FIG. 5 is a method flowchart of a battery management method executed by a microprocessor according to another embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Figure 5, it is basically the same as the method flow shown in Figure 4, the difference is mainly that the microprocessor also adds the temperature detection interface (step 511) to obtain the temperature information before determining whether a safety alarm has occurred. And a step of judging whether the temperature information is greater than a preset temperature threshold (step 512).

Understandably, the temperature of the battery pack will have a significant impact on its performance and reliability. Excessive heat accumulation can even induce serious safety accidents such as fire. Therefore, through the preset temperature threshold, the microprocessor can turn off the charging circuit switch in time (step 505), and control the temperature of the battery pack within a safe range.

The battery management system provided by the embodiments of the present invention can be applied to any suitable scenario, providing an integrated battery management solution for electrically driven mobile vehicles and the like, ensuring the reliability and safety of the battery pack.

For example, an unmanned aerial vehicle applying the battery management system provided by the embodiment of the present invention may include: a main body, a battery pack composed of several rechargeable batteries connected in series, and a battery management system.

Among them, the main body of the fuselage is provided with a power system for driving the operation of the drone, a battery compartment with a preset volume and a charging interface.

The power system can be any suitable type of motor and its supporting power structure, such as a propeller connected to the output shaft of the motor. The specific volume and fixed structure of the battery compartment can accommodate several battery packs. Generally, a conductive connection interface made of metal or other materials is also provided on the battery compartment for use as a power supply/charge interface. The charging interface can be of any type or set according to any power supply standard. It can be connected to an external power source through a cable or the like to provide the corresponding charging voltage and charging current.

When in use, the battery pack is installed at a corresponding position in the battery compartment, and supplies power to the power system through a corresponding power supply interface. The battery management system is connected to the power supply interface in the battery compartment and the charging interface, and performs orderly control of the charging and discharging process of the battery pack inserted in the battery compartment.

Based on the battery management system disclosed in the above embodiments, an embodiment of the present invention also provides a battery management method executed by a microprocessor. The battery management method can be applied to electric drive equipment such as drones to realize charge balance management for two or more battery packs. Fig. 6 is a flowchart of charge equalization management provided by an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in Figure 6, the method includes:

601. Read battery parameters of the battery pack.

Specifically, according to actual application scenarios, any suitable method may be used to obtain the parameters of the battery pack. For example, when using a smart battery, the relevant battery parameters can be directly read through the data interface of the smart battery. In other embodiments, a corresponding detection circuit can also be provided to detect and read battery parameters such as voltage and current. Specifically, the battery parameters may include the voltage, state of charge, and power of each battery cell, etc.

When reading the battery parameters of the battery pack, taking into account the problem that the battery pack or related detection circuits may be in a sleep state, in some embodiments, step 601 may specifically include the following steps:

First, check whether the battery pack is inserted. Then, when it is detected that the battery pack is inserted, the charging circuit switch is controlled to be turned on for a preset time to activate the battery pack. Finally, read the battery parameters of the battery pack.

602. Compare the power of each battery pack.

The power of the battery pack can be compared in any suitable way, and is not limited to obtaining accurate battery power for comparison. For example, the voltage of the battery pack can be read for simple comparison, and the relative relationship between the battery packs can be determined.

603. Control to charge the battery pack with the highest power.

In this embodiment, the battery pack with the highest power is selectively charged preferentially, and the selective charging of different battery packs can be realized by devices such as a selector switch or a multiplexer.

604. Determine whether the pressure difference of the battery pack is greater than a preset pressure difference threshold. If yes, go to step 605; if not, go to step 606.

The differential pressure threshold is an empirical value. It is set according to the actual situation as a judgment or measurement standard for the safe use of the battery.

605. Perform equalization on the battery pack.

"Equalization" is an orderly charging form with specific protection measures to ensure that each cell in the battery pack can maintain a uniform state.

606. Stop balancing the battery pack.

It is understandable that when the pressure difference is small, the charge equalization can be turned off or stopped using, so as to improve the charging efficiency.

In other embodiments, in the process of charging the battery pack, a temperature monitoring function for the battery pack may be added. Specifically, the temperature information of the battery pack is collected by a temperature sensor (such as a thermistor, etc.) to determine whether it is greater than a preset temperature threshold. If the monitoring remains below the preset temperature threshold, the battery pack can continue to be charged. If the preset temperature threshold is exceeded, the charging circuit is disconnected and charging of the battery pack is stopped.

In addition to the temperature monitoring function, in other embodiments, an alarm function can be further added. Based on the preset alarm judgment logic, determine the operating condition of the battery pack during the charging process and determine whether a safety alarm occurs. If so, disconnect the charging circuit in time to stop charging. If not, continue charging until the battery is fully charged.

It should be noted that although in the embodiments of the present invention, only functional naming and general functional description are used to describe the functional modules in the battery management system (such as equalization circuits, temperature detection circuits, and multi-channel signal selection器). However, those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application according to actual needs (such as power consumption, chip area cost, circuit implementation difficulty, etc.), such as choosing to use hardware and software Or a combination of software and hardware is used to implement the functions of the equalization circuit, the temperature detection circuit, and the multi-channel signal selection disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention. This implementation should not be considered as going beyond the scope of the present invention. On the premise that the functions to be performed are known, the hardware circuit combination or the software program used to realize these functions are well known to those skilled in the art.

The above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention, not to limit them; under the idea of the present invention, the technical features of the above embodiments or different embodiments can also be combined, and the steps can be implemented in any order , And there are many other variations of different aspects of the present invention as described above. For the sake of brevity, they are not provided in details; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, those of ordinary skill in the art should understand: It is still possible to modify the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments, or equivalently replace some of the technical features; these modifications or replacements do not cause the essence of the corresponding technical solutions to deviate from the scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims (17)

1. A battery management system is characterized by comprising:

   A charging circuit switch, which is arranged between the charging power source and the battery pack to form a charging circuit;

   An equalizing circuit, which is used to equalize the battery pack;

   A microprocessor, the microprocessor includes a battery detection interface for reading battery parameters, a switch control interface for controlling the on or off of the charging circuit switch, and an equalization control for controlling the operation of the equalization circuit interface.
2. The battery management system according to claim 1, wherein the battery parameters include: voltage, state of charge, and power of each cell in the battery pack.
3. The battery management system according to claim 1, further comprising a temperature detection circuit; the temperature detection circuit is used to detect temperature information of the battery pack;

   The microprocessor also includes a temperature detection interface for reading the temperature information.
4. The battery management system of claim 3, wherein one of the charging loop switch, one of the equalization circuit, and one temperature detection circuit form a battery management component; each of the battery management components corresponds to a battery pack , Connected to a battery pack.
5. The battery management system according to claim 3, wherein the microprocessor is specifically configured to:

   Obtaining the temperature information through the temperature detection interface;

   When the temperature information is greater than a preset temperature threshold, the charging circuit switch is turned off.
6. The battery management system according to any one of claims 1-5, further comprising a multi-channel signal selector;

   The multi-channel signal selector includes several input terminals and output terminals; each of the input terminals is used to communicate with a battery pack; and the output terminal is connected with the battery detection interface of the microprocessor.
7. The battery management system according to claim 1, wherein the microprocessor is further used for:

   Determine whether the battery pack has a safety alarm;

   If yes, disconnect the charging circuit switch;

   If not, compare the power of each battery pack;

   Control the charging circuit switch corresponding to the battery pack with the highest power to turn on.
8. The battery management system according to claim 7, wherein the microprocessor is further used for:

   When the pressure difference of the battery pack is greater than a preset pressure difference threshold, the equalization circuit is activated to equalize the battery pack;

   When the pressure difference of the battery pack is less than the preset pressure difference threshold, the operation of the equalization circuit is stopped.
9. The battery management system according to claim 1, wherein the microprocessor is further used for:

   When detecting that the battery pack is inserted, controlling the charging circuit switch to conduct for a preset time;

   Read the battery parameters of the inserted battery pack through the battery detection interface.
10. A power supply module, characterized by comprising: a charging power supply for providing charging voltage and charging current for the battery pack and the battery management system according to any one of claims 1-9;

    The battery management system is integrated on the charging power source and is used to control the charging voltage and charging current provided to each battery pack.
11. The power supply module according to claim 10, wherein the charging power supply is a charger with voltage conversion capability or a DC power supply.
12. An unmanned aerial vehicle, characterized in that it includes:

    A main body of the fuselage, in which is provided a power system for driving the operation of the drone, a battery compartment with a preset volume, and a charging interface;

    A plurality of battery packs, the battery pack is composed of a number of rechargeable battery cells connected in series, installed in the battery compartment, and used to supply power to the power system through a corresponding power supply interface;

    9. The battery management system according to any one of claims 1-9, wherein the battery management system is housed in the body of the fuselage, and is connected to the power supply interface in the battery compartment and the charging interface.
13. A battery management method, characterized in that it is executed by a microprocessor and used to perform charge balance management on two or more battery packs, the method comprising:

    Reading the battery parameters of the battery pack;

    Comparing the power of each battery pack;

    Control the charging of the battery pack with the highest power; and

    Determining whether the pressure difference of the battery pack is greater than a preset pressure difference threshold;

    If yes, balance the battery pack,

    If not, stop balancing the battery pack.
14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the reading the battery parameters of the battery pack comprises:

    Detecting whether the battery pack is inserted;

    When detecting that the battery pack is inserted, controlling the charging circuit switch to turn on for a preset time to activate the battery pack; and

    Read the battery parameters of the battery pack.
15. The method according to any one of claims 13 or 14, wherein the battery parameters of the battery pack include: the voltage, state of charge, and power of each cell in the battery pack.
16. The method of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

    Determine whether the battery pack has a safety alarm,

    If yes, disconnect the charging circuit of the battery pack;

    If not, continue to charge the battery pack.
17. The method according to any one of claims 13-16, wherein the method further comprises:

    Acquiring temperature information of the battery pack;

    Determine whether the temperature information is greater than a preset temperature threshold; if so, disconnect the charging circuit of the battery pack;

    If not, continue to charge the battery pack.

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