MULTICELL BATTERY MONITORING SYSTEM WITH SINGLE SENSOR WIRE

摘要

A method for detecting the condition of the individual cells of a bank of serial ly connected battery cells using a single common sensing wire connected through res pective non-linear component switching means to respective reference terminals located b etween adjacent batteries and at the end of the battery assembly, which method comprises: inject ing into the common sensing wire a voltage or current of magnitude, polarity and duration suf ficient to serially alter the common state of the respective switching means; detecting an instantaneous change of impedance at points of transition of the state of the individual switc hes; determining the voltage and/or current of the common sensing wire at the points of rapid cha nge of impedance; and providing output indicating the condition of at least a deteriora ting one of said individual batteries based on the voltage and/or current determined at the point s of change of impedance.