Development of a Smart Battery System with Active Balancing for a Mobile Robot Platform

Battery systems play a major role in the transition to more sustainable power supply and storage systems, especially in the automotive industry and in mobile robots. The main goal is to achieve maximum efficiency and service life by operating the battery at optimal conditions. This improves resource utilization leading to higher sustainability. Modern battery management systems balance the charge of the battery cells for extended operation. Furthermore, they ensure safe battery usage by preventing potential damage caused by overcurrent, undervoltage, or overtemperature. This paper presents and evaluates the development of a novel smart battery system for a mobile robot platform. The scalable system includes active cell balancing with an efficiency of up to 79% for the prototype with inductor-based buck-boost topology. Fast current control, common safety measures, battery state monitoring, and communication are realized with modern microcontrollers. The continuous availability of state information also provides the option for further research on efficient battery management and lifetime e.g., on AI.