Automatic crash battery discharge method

摘要

A system and method for discharging a vehicle battery following a vehicle damaging event. The method includes determining that the vehicle has been involved in the vehicle damaging event and then discharging cells in the battery to a predetermined cell voltage based on the severity of the vehicle damaging event. The battery cells can be discharged by resistors that are already existing in the vehicle battery for cell balancing purposes, or by resistors that have been added for the cell discharge purposes. The voltage of the cells are monitored when they are being dissipated, and once the particular voltage of a cell has reached the desired voltage, then a switch is opened to disconnect the resistor from the cell.

主权项

1. A method for discharging a battery on a vehicle, said battery including a plurality of battery cells, each battery cell including a discharge circuit, said method comprising:
determining that the vehicle has been involved in a vehicle damaging event; and discharging each battery cell if a vehicle damaging event is detected by turning on the discharge circuit for each cell to discharge the cell to a predetermined cell state-of-charge level, where discharging the battery cells includes discharging the battery cells to a first state-of-charge level if the vehicle damaging event is determined to be low severity where the battery cells retain charge to operate the vehicle, discharging the battery cells to a second state-of-charge level if the vehicle damaging event is determined to be medium severity where the battery cells can be recharged, and discharging the battery cells to a third state-of-charge level if the vehicle damaging event is determined to be high severity where the battery cells are damaged and cannot be recharged.