Abstract-- The paper describes the application of a real-

time, adaptive battery modelling methodology to Li-ion

batteries. This methodology allows accurate estimation of
the State-of-Function (SoF) of batteries for an Electric or
Hybrid-Electric vehicle. Through use of a Kalman
Estimator and online battery model parameter estimation,
the voltages associated with monitoring the State of Charge
(SoC) of the battery system are shown to be accurately
estimated, even given erroneous initial conditions in both
the model and parameters. In this way, problems such as
self-discharge during non-use of the cells and SoC drift (as
usually incurred by coulomb-counting methods due to over-
charging or ambient temperature fluctuations) are
overcome. A further benefit of the adaptive nature of the
parameter estimation allows battery ageing (State of Health
- SoH) to be monitored and, in the case of safety-critical
systems, cell failure may be predicted in time to avoid
inconvenience to passenger networks. Moreover, the ability
to accurately predict the SoF and changes in battery
parameters allows charging scenarios to be optimized to
extend lifetime and facilitate future Vehicle-to-Grid
(V2G) implementation.


Index Terms-- Battery Modelling, Parameter
Estimation, Energy Storage

I. INTRODUCTION
The desire for miniaturisation, reduction in weight,
and increase in time between charges has led to the
prevalence of Li-ion cells for use in portable electronic
equipment. The attraction of this energy-dense
technology has also been reorganised by the auto
industry, and the take-up of Li-ion chemistries by
automotive OEMs for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles
(PHEVs) and 2
nd
generation fully Electric Vehicles (EVs)
has increased rapidly over the last 3 years. As
increasingly more variations of the Li-ion chemistry and
anode/cathode technology are investigated and developed
(see Fig. 1), the difficulty in maximising the battery pack
lifetime, and preventing catastrophic failure due to
under/over-charging places greater demands on a Battery
Monitoring System (BMS) for such a vehicle. For
increased consumer uptake of EVs, these BMS must be
capable of accurately predicting the State-of-Charge (SoC
- amount of charge available in the battery at any time to


sink/source power) so that intelligent charging scenarios
can be employed to maximise battery lifetime (or State-
of-Health - SoH the ability of the battery to repeatedly
provide its rated capacity over its lifetime), whilst
enabling the user to reach their destination without any
Range-anxiety.


Fig. 1. Example Li-ion cylindrical-type cells for automotive use
Unfortunately, there is no quantitative method of
measuring SoC and SoH directly when the battery is in
dynamic use, i.e. in-situ on the vehicle, necessitating the
use of system modelling based on available, quantifiable
data.
Literature reviews of existing battery modelling
techniques, [1-3] for example categorise these techniques
into the following main areas:

1. Electrochemical models
2. Empirical/Mathematical models
3. Equivalent circuit models

Considering electrochemical models [4-7], the battery
chemistry charge/discharge carrier mechanisms are
described by a high number of Partial Differential
Equations (PDEs) which must be solved simultaneously
with a computational expense that generally precludes
use in real-time online control. Alternatively, these high
numbers of PDEs can be represented by a lower number
of reduced order PDEs and by substituting boundary
conditions and discretisation, real-time application is
possible at the expense of reduced SoC accuracy [7].
EV/HEV Li-ion Battery Modelling and State-
of-Function Determination
Chris Gould

, Jiabin Wang, Dave Stone, and Martin Foster

UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK
Tel. +44 (0) 114 2225132, Fax. +44 (0) 114 2225196,

E-mail: c.gould@sheffield.ac.uk
978-1-4673-1301-8/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
2012
International Symposium on Power Electronics,
Electrical Drives, Automation and Motion
353

Empirical or mathematical techniques are here used to
describe models that rely on some form of battery
characterisation through experimental data fitting. Most
often these techniques express the batterys terminal
voltage as a function of demand current, ambient
temperature, SoC and a DC gain, such as the Shepherd
Model, Unnwehr Universal Model or Nernst Model as
described in [1]. Other SoC techniques can range from
the simple pulsed-discharge and relaxation techniques
that allow the Open-Circuit Voltage (OCV) to be
assessed and linearized for given SoC points [8], to the
more complicated Neural Network approach of [9],
requiring input-output data for training sets. Each of these
methods suffers from an inability to be generally
applicable to batteries from the same chemistry family,
let alone a range of cells from different chemistries, since
production variations would require each battery to be
pre-tested/evaluated for accurate SoC estimation.
Equivalent circuit models operate along similar
principles to the previously mentioned empirical
techniques, in that the terminal voltage is modelled as a
function of demand current, ambient temperature and
SoC. However, these functions are structured into
discrete passive electronic component networks. This
enables the battery to be modelled using circuit theory
(and hence circuit simulation software).
One of the simplest forms of equivalent circuit
modelling is to treat the battery as a large capacitive
charge store that can accumulate charge by integrating
current over time. This method is more commonly known
as coulomb-counting or Ampere-hour (Ah [3]) technique,
and is an effective first-order approximation to the charge
stored in a battery, provided that accurate current sensing
technology is available. The technique is however subject
to drift, as any measurement errors are accumulated, and
also presumes that the demand current has no physical
effect on the battery i.e. no internal temperature change or
unwanted chemical transition effects. These effects can
be taken into consideration through the use of higher
order networks such as the well-known Randles [10]
model (Fig. 2) originally adapted for Lead-acid batteries.



Fig. 2. Randles 2
nd
order equivalent circuit model

Here, the main capacitive charge store C
b
is
augmented with a transient impedance network C
s
and R
t

(to account for small time-constant electrochemical
transitions), a terminal and interconnection resistance R
i

and a large self-discharge resistance R
d
. Further transient
responses with different time-constants can be included
by the further introduction of R-C networks such as [11-
13], requiring filtering of the input-output response to
obtain suitable static circuit parameters.
As with the empirical techniques, these parameters
must be evaluated with test data, and are largely cell-
specific, requiring much a priori information before
incorporation into a BMS. In [14-16], the authors have
demonstrated that the 2
nd
order Randles model can be
adapted to provide a more suitable state-variable circuit
model that allows accurate online circuit parameter
estimation, and when coupled to Kalman Estimator
techniques [17], forms a system of algorithms able to
converge on circuit variables linked to SoF indicators.
Whilst these techniques were developed primarily on
Lead-acid batteries, the underlying adaptive nature of the
methodology was proposed to be suitable for a wide
range of battery topologies. With the adoption of Li-ion
as the most common battery chemistry by electric vehicle
manufacturers, the authors apply similar techniques to
commercially available Li-ion cells (Fig. 1) in order to
investigate the range of parameters observed by the
system, and its ability to correctly converge on the SoC
voltages traditionally linked to the main charge store of a
battery.

II. BATTERY MODELLING
The proposed equivalent circuit model shown in Fig. 3
is derived from the Randles 2
nd
order model shown in
Fig. 2 through use of a star-delta transform as per [15],
resulting in the parameter transforms of (1) where it can
be seen that if the main charge store C
b
>> C
s
then C
b

becomes analogous to C
n
, and similarly C
s
analogous to
C
p
. The network state-variable equations are given in (2).



Fig. 3. Remapped circuit model proposed by Gould et al [15]
( )
i in C o
n n
C
n n
C
C
p
in
p n p
p n C
p n
C
C
R I V V
R C
V
C R
V
V
C
I
R R C
R R V
C R
V
V
p
p n
n
p n
p
+ = + =
+
+
=

(2)
( ) ( )
( )
t d p b s b t n
s b s b p s b b n
R R R C C C R R
C C C C C C C C C
+ = + =
+ = + =
2 2
2
/
/ /


(1)
R
p
V
o

R
i

R
n

C
p

C
n

I
in

V
Cp

V
Cn

V
o

R
i

R
t

C
b
R
d

C
s

I
in

V
Cb

V
Cs

354

In the remapped circuit, the voltage across the main
charge store (V
Cb
in the Randles model) can be obtained
from (3), where it can be seen that if C
n
>> C
p
, the SoC
voltage becomes analogous to V
Cn.
However, the only
simplification made to the system for parameter
estimation is that the discharge resistance, R
p
, is of such a
size and near constant value that the self-discharge rate is
negligible, resulting in the simplified state-variable
description of (4).


( ) ( )
p n p C n C SoC
C C C V C V V
p n
+ + = /
(3)
i in C o
p
in
n p
C
p n
C
C
n n
C
n n
C
C
R I V V
C
I
R C
V
C R
V
V
R C
V
C R
V
V
p
p n
p
p n
n
+ =
+ =
+ =

(4)

In order to obtain suitable input-output data to validate
both the parameter estimation techniques and the Kalman
Estimator theory in the following sections, a
commercially available Lithium-ion Iron Phosphate
(LiFePO4) cylindrical cell such as may be found in EV
battery packs is used as the candidate Li-ion chemistry.
Fig. 4 lists the manufacturer data for the 3000mAh 3.2V
nominal LIF26650E cell used in testing.



Fig. 4. Manufacturer data for a 3000mAh LiFePO4 cell [18]

A current-demand drive-cycle profile has been adapted
from track data taken from a Honda Insight HEV
equipped with a bespoke Lead-acid battery pack used in
the Reliable Highly Optimised Lead Acid Battery
(RHOLAB) project [19], in order to provide dynamic
test-data. The cycle has a predominant discharge
characteristic and is continuously cycled from 100% SoC
until the cell is fully discharged to evaluate the response
of the algorithms over the full SoC range. The resulting
measured demand current and cell terminal voltage are
shown in Figs. 5 and 6.
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
Time (s)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

d
e
m
a
n
d

o
n

c
e
l
l

(
A
)

Fig. 5. Current-demand adapted from track data obtained
from a Honda Insight HEV

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Time (s)
C
e
l
l

t
e
r
m
i
n
a
l

v
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)

Fig. 6. Resulting cell terminal voltage variation from drive
cycle of Fig. 5 applied to candidate LiFePO4 cell

III. PARAMETER ESTIMATION
Considering the input-output data of Figs. 5 and 6,
black-box state-space modelling [20] may be used to
estimate suitable model orders and parameters, where the
general structure of estimation can be described by (5).

) ( ) ( ) ( C ) (
) ( ) ( B ) ( A ) (
t e t Du t x t y
t Ke t u t x Ts t x
+ + =
+ + = +


(5)

In this case, an ARMAX model could be used to
estimate an n
th
order model to the input-output data (in
MATLABs System Identification toolbox for example).
However, considering the equivalent circuit model
derived from Randles model above (Fig. 3), a structured
parameter estimation model may be formulated to better
estimate the parameters associated with the
electrochemical reactions.
Considering the state-space description given in (4), a
second order model is desirable, and considering that the
model parameter associated with R
n
C
n
will be large, and
can be considered to be time-invariant over suitably sized
buffers of data (due to the inherent nature of Li-ion
discharge characteristics), the model can be structured
355

with both time-invariant and time-variant parameters. The
Prediction-Error Minimisation (PEM) algorithm in
MATLABs System Identification toolbox allows exactly
this kind of structuring. The PEM algorithm operates in a
similar manner to an ARMAX model, however, utilises
the cost function V
N
(G,H) in (6) to minimise the error e(t)
between the predicted model output G(q)u(t) for a set of
estimated model parameters and the measured output data
y(t).
G(q)u(t)] - (q)[y(t) H ) (
) ( ) , (
1 -
1
2
=
=
_
=
t e
t e H G V
N
t
N


(6)

The structured state-space PEM is applied to the input-
output data of Figs. 5 and 6 online by buffering
90seconds of measured input-output data in a FIFO
buffer that is updated every 10seconds. Initial conditions
for the state estimations (i.e. capacitor voltages V
Cn
and
V
Cp
) at each update stage are taken from the outputs of
the Kalman Estimator predictions of state voltages as will
be described in the next section.

IV. KALMAN ESTIMATOR THEORY
The Kalman Estimator [17] is particularly useful for
this methodology, since it optimally estimates states
affected by broadband noise within the system bandwidth
(i.e. tries to minimise the sum-of-squared errors between
actual and estimated states), which may not be able to be
filtered classically. The recursive use of predictor-
corrector algorithms is also beneficial, since at each
stage, the updated parameter estimates may be used to aid
the KE in convergence.
The implementation of the KE follows the method
introduced in [15] (repeated here for clarity), whereby a
discrete-time equivalent model of a systems state-
variable description (7) is generated, using a first-order
Taylor series expansion, resulting in (8) and (9) where T
c

is the sampling rate.

) ( C ) (
) ( B ) ( A ) (
t x t y
t u t x t x
=
+ =


(7)
1 d 1
d d 1
C
B A
+ +
+
=
+ =
k k
k k k
x y
u x x

(8)
C C B B A I A
d d d
~ ~ + ~
c c
T T
(9)
This system is now assumed to be corrupted by
stationary Gaussian white noise consisting of a system
disturbance additive vector
k
and model disturbance
additive vector
k
, both of which are considered to have
zero mean value for all k and have the following
respective covariance matrices (10), where E is the
expectation operator.

| |
| | k R
k Q
k k
k k
all for E
all for E
T
T
=
=

o o


(10)


This allows the physical system to be described by (11)
1 1 d 1
d d 1
C
B A
+ + +
+
+ =
I + + =
k k k
k k k k
x z
u x x

o


(11)
where z is now used to describe the measured output (e.g.
o
V
incorporating the Gaussian noise) and represents the
coupling between the model disturbances on each state.
The KE methodology is implemented recursively, so
that at each sample step k the algorithms operate on the
input-output data collected up to and including the k
th

sample as a prediction/correction flow diagram depicted
in Fig 7. Intuitively this will require initial estimates for
the states and covariance matrices considered by the
model, and a best guess scenario of these values is
prompted by values taken from previously characterised
Lead-acid cells (12) for investigation into the robustness
of the estimation algorithms.



Initial matrices
and parameters

(
(

=
) 0 (
) 0 (

0 / 0
p
n
C
C
V
V
x

0 = T
Form A
d
, B
d
etc with current parameters
Pre-process measured voltage (remove
i in
R I
)
Predict states
k k k k k
u x x
d / d / 1
B A + =
+
Calculate error covariance and Kalman gain
T T
k k k k
I I + =
+
Q A P A P
d / d / 1

| |
1
d / 1 d d / 1 1
R C P C C P K

+ + +
+ =
T
k k
T
k k k
Correct state prediction
| |
k k k k k k k k
x z x x
/ 1 d 1 1 / 1 1 / 1
C K
+ + + + + +
+ =
Calculate
b
C
V
and apply filter
Update error covariance
| |
k k k k / 1 d 1 k 1 / 1
P C K - I P
+ + + +
=

? s 90 > T

Apply Subspace algorithms
Update Parameters
1 + = T T
No
Yes
Fig. 7. Recursive implementation of KE
356

(

= =
(

=
(

=
0 . 3
0 . 3
10
1 . 0 0
0 01 . 0
10 0
0 10
0 / 0
0
x R
Q P

(12)

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The parameter estimation technique described in the
previous sections has been applied to the measured
battery input-output data of Figs. 5 and 6. The KE is
initialised with R
i
= 30m, R
n
= 10m, C
p
= 1000F, C
n
=
100000F, as would be expected from Lead-acid cells, and
the parameter estimation algorithms are used to update
these model parameters every 10s. Since the parameter R
i

is available from the estimation algorithms, the terminal
voltage is pre-processed to remove I
in
R
i
, beneficially
obtaining the state associated with C
p
.
The resulting model parameter variations for the
candidate LiFePO4 cell are shown in Figs. 8-10.

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
Time (s)
R
e
s
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

R
i

(
O
)

Fig. 8. Online estimation of parameter R
i

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
Time (s)
C
a
p
a
c
i
t
a
n
c
e

C
p

(
F
)

Fig. 9. Online estimation of parameter C
p

Given the manufacturer specified internal impedance
of 30m from Fig. 4, the estimated internal resistance,
R
i
, of ~40m in Fig. 8, reflects the temperature increase
(after model convergence) expected during continuous
cycling, whilst the decay in capacitance C
p
(Fig. 9) and
increase in resistance R
n
(Fig. 10) models the expected
electrochemical variation as the cell approaches deep
discharge, and is unable to source the transient power
requirements of the drive-cycle current-demand.

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
Time (s)
R
e
s
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

R
n

(
O
)

Fig. 10. Online estimation of parameter R
n


Further application of the KE to the input-output data
of Figs. 5 and 6 with the time-varying parameters from
Figs. 8-10 is shown in Fig. 11. To provide a reference to
the expected SoC voltage variation, pulsed-discharge and
relaxation techniques are applied to the same cell using
the methods of [8] to obtain the Open-Circuit Voltage
(OCV) estimation of SoC (normalised to the time to total
discharge). It can be seen that despite initialisation with
an erroneous initial voltage condition, the KE rapidly
converges onto the OCV estimation with excellent
accuracy.

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
Time (s)
S
o
C

v
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)


Kalman Estimator
Open-Cct Voltage SoC approximation
Initial Open-Cct Voltage

Fig. 11. Comparison of SoC voltage estimation techniques
demonstrating convergence ability of proposed method

Considering the OCV-SoC relationship derived from
the pulsed-discharge and relaxation techniques, a
conversion from SoC voltage to SoC percentage can be
applied to Fig. 11 and compared to typical coulomb-
counting techniques that utilise a best-guess estimation
to the actual cell capacity by assuming the nominal
capacity is 100% SoC. The results shown in Fig. 12
demonstrate excellent correlation between the 3Ah
357

nominal coulomb-counting method (measured capacity of
3.025Ah) and the KE with adaptive parameters.
Moreover, Fig. 12 demonstrates the convergence ability
of the KE over the coulomb-counting technique which
depends upon accurate a priori knowledge of the initial
capacity. If, for example, an unknown cell had been
tested that was at 50% SoC, the KE would have
converged to this value, whilst the coulomb-counting
technique would have to assume it had started at the
erroneous nominal 3Ah, or 100%SoC.

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
Time (s)
S
o
C

o
f

c
e
l
l

(
%
)


Kalman Estimator
Current integration from nominal 3Ah
Remaining measured capacity discharge

Fig. 12. Comparison of SoC techniques demonstrating
convergence ability of proposed method

CONCLUSIONS
Novel modelling techniques have been applied to Li-
ion battery chemistries in order to estimate their State-of-
Function. It is shown that convergence on, and accurate
estimation of the voltage across the main charge store of
a battery (which is commonly associated with State-of-
Charge), is achievable, and that State-of-Health variation
can be inferred from excessive variation in the resulting
parameter estimations. These techniques have been
adapted from algorithms developed on Lead-acid cells,
demonstrating their ability to model widely varying
battery chemistries.

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358