A pulsed power system design using lithium-ion batteries and one charger per battery

Abstract

The work documented in this thesis realizes a small-scale implementation of a Battery Management System (BMS) that has the charging, storage, and discharge capabilities to meet scaled down requirements of a pulsed power system. Further, this work establishes a flexible battery research and testing capability resident at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The designed architecture will provide this flexibility by providing the capability to change charging methodologies and types of batteries with only a change of the FPGA software. The BMS design uses lithium-ion batteries as the energy storage medium and uses one charger per battery for maximum charging flexibility. In order to meet a pulsed power system's requirements, the BMS performs three functions: charging lithium-ion batteries, storing energy for the pulsed power application in lithium-ion batteries, and discharging the energy in pulses to simulate the requirements of a pulse power system. To perform these three functions the BMS has several elements to include the power source, the charger, the batteries, the FPGA controller, and the discharge mechanism. The design and construction of the BMS and these individual elements will be explored in detail in this thesis.