Optimization of Battery Management System (BMS) for Nanosatellite

ABSTRACT

A Battery Management system (BMS) is tasked to provide optimum and efficient control over the battery in any satellite EPS. Along with Efficiency, these systems also require intelligent safety measures to avoid catastrophic failure when working in the space environment. For a large-scale battery pack, the accumulation of the heat generated during the charging and discharging processes might increase the battery pack’s temperature, which will poss a faster acceleration of electrochemical reaction that may cause battery damage. Thus, this study aims to optimize the charging current to minimize the charging time for fast battery charging before the satellite approaches the eclipse. The BMS will be utilizing a Social Group Optimization Algorithm on MATLAB Simulink to overcome the state of charge (SOC) problem, improving the battery lifespan.

The result shows that the total time taken for the algorithm to converge is 86.18s, having an optimized current at 2500mA to fast-charge a lithium-ion battery. This produces a 524s decrease in the charging time without affecting the capacity and the battery life cycle. The approach accounts for charge time reduction with an efficiency of 95.51%, an improvement of 2.41% compared to the previous technique. This result entitles that this method performed best over the previous technique and is easy to implement on Nanosatellite, considering all the charging processes, allowing maximum battery protection from overvoltage, overcharging, and overheating conditions.

Keywords: Optimization, Battery, Power, Management, Nanosatellite

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

A battery management system (BMS) is essential in small satellite missions to prevent batteries from overcharging or over-discharged, radiation projection overheating, and overvoltage protection (Jain & Simon, 2005). However, this listed factor could result in extreme damage to the battery. Other factors such as rises in temperature will drastically drain battery capacity and reduce the battery’s life span (Mousavi et al., 2016) that may dramatically lead to the end of a satellite mission.

A BMS is a crucial part of various electrical and electronic systems, for example, commercial electronic device and electric vehicles that help to monitor and reports the state of charge (SOC) (Mohammed et al., 2019), (Rahman et al., 2015), state of health (SOH) and remaining useful life for every rechargeable multi-unit batteries cell (Ananthraj & Ghosh, 2021). The battery management system can manage and adapt towards changing battery characteristics over time since the applications require the parallel or series attachment of multiple unit battery cells (Khan et al., 2016).

Renewable energies have become famous worldwide over the last few decades due to the increasing attention on the environmental pollution caused by conventional fuels. However, due to natural, economic, and technical issues, renewable energies are becoming more challenging to be implemented in space exploration (Villela et al., 2019).

A battery management system (BMS) effectively incorporates renewable energies into small spacecraft or satellites to overcome this problem. Lithium-ion batteries remain competitive in the world market due to their superior characteristic and high energy efficiency and density performance. The wide range of safe operating temperature, the higher rate of charging capability, the longer cycle life, and the lower self-discharge rate was discussed by (Tomaszewska et al., 2019).

A lithium-ion battery is a power source with lots of electrochemical reactions during charging and discharging. For a large-scale battery pack, the accumulation of the heat generated during the charging and discharging processes might increase the battery pack’s overall temperature, thus causing a faster acceleration of the electrochemical reaction. This electrochemical reaction can reduce the battery lifespan and affect battery charging capability and safety. Besides, mechanical abuse, overcharging, and the short circuit issue in high thermal conditions of the battery pack may cause battery damage (Lee et al., 2018). At low ambient temperatures, the lithium-ion diffusion capacity inside the battery may decline (Zou et al., 2018).

Furthermore, at different ambient temperatures, cells and modules in a battery pack behave differently, and this causes the imbalance of the electrochemical over time. (Quamruzzaman et al., 2016) explained the difference in the rate of charging and discharging, the state of charge (SOC) between adjacent cells, and the capacity loss. Thus, a battery management system (BMS) is essential to maximize battery performance by maintaining an optimum state of charge, state of health, safety area of operation (SOA), and operating temperature range (OTR) (Rahimi-Aichi, 2006).

Photovoltaic (PV) can be utilized for various aspects. One of the prominent uses is in space exploration ―battery charging.‖ independent domestic electric supply and pumping (Chellakhi et al., 2021).

The goal of Maximum power point tracking(MPPT) is to extract the total available power produced by the solar panel (PV) in stipulated climatic conditions (temperature and solar irradiation). To control the power supplied by the solar panel, the MPP is integrated by adjusting the duty cycle of the DC-DC converter by the MPPT algorithm. Maximum power point tracking has been employed in different spacecraft missions, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mars exploration (―NASA Space Exploration,‖ 2015) (Lele, 2016).

There has been a lot of research ongoing to provide an optimum method or means for battery management. Diverse methods and techniques have been applied to optimize the battery’s state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH). The products mentioned can hardly provide the best battery management system for Nanosatellite technology for the following reasons; part is too costly or expensive, functionally not meeting the power demand in space or not space qualified. Poor performance of the battery management system on spacecraft will not optimize the charging current, and minimize the charging time for fast charging of battery as the satellite approaches eclipse. Thus a cheaper and more advanced instrument is required to be developed. Therefore, the objectives of this study focus on implementing an optimized battery management system on nanosatellites.

In order to meet the above requirements, a low-cost, versatile, portable battery management system was designed, as the existing system used are imported into the country and are expensive.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The electrical power supply unit is paramount in satellite systems; its primary source is the battery energy technology, which determines the satellite’s life span. Power failure as a result of battery run down that has not been able to recharge. Power failure is a significant limitation in satellite missions. However, this limitation accounts for the problems in designing the battery management system (BMS), which is generally traceable to an inefficient Power Management System (PMS). Cognitive measure in the design process to elongate the lifespan of a satellite mission requires critical intervention; in this research, we optimized the time charge of the battery by an improved optimization technique to optimize the charging current thereby minimizing the charging time. A benefit will enhance space exploration by utilizing an efficient optimization algorithm, dramatically increasing the lifespan of Nanosatellite missions.

1.3 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE OF RESEARCH

The specific objectives were to;

i. implement a battery management system for Nanosatellite.

ii. optimize the battery management system.

iii. validation of results to existing work.

1.4 EXPECTED CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE

This study seeks to optimize the performance of the battery management system in the Nanosatellite system. This was achieved by utilizing a new optimization technique on BMS known on as ―Social Group Optimization‖ Algorithm (SGO) to improve the battery’s charge time, thereby preventing the battery from undercharging, overcharging, and over-temperature; this will dramatically improve the lifespan of Nanosatellite missions.

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