2012 IEEE 27-th Convention of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Israel

Capacitor Semi-Active Battery-Ultracapacitor Hybrid

Energy Source
Chaim Lerman, Amiad Horosov and Alon Kuperman
Ariel University Center of Samaria
Ariel, Israel


AbstractDesign of a battery-ultracapacitor semi-
active hybrid energy source for powering a pulsed
current load in presented in the paper. The energy
source consists of a rechargeable LiFePO
4
battery pack
paired with an ultracapacitor pack, connected to the
load via a DC-DC converter. The system is controlled
such that battery supplies a nearly constant current,
equal to the average load current, while the
ultracapacitor supplies the dynamic component of the
load current. Placing the DC-DC converter on the
ultracapacitor, as opposed to placing it on the battery,
decouples the ultracapacitor's voltage from the
battery/load voltage. As a result, smaller and cheaper
ultracapacitor can be employed, compared to a passive
hybrid connection. Simulations of both passive and
semi-active systems are presented in the paper and
differences between the two systems are discussed
thoroughly.
Index Terms Hybrid source, Li-ion battery,
ultracapacitor, DC-DC converter.
I. INTRODUCTION
Portable electronic devices, wireless sensor nodes and
telecommunications systems possess similar load profile
features, characterized by high peak-to-average
requirements [1]. Loads like these can be represented by
high pulsed current consumption profiles and as a result,
these devices require an energy source possessing both
high-energy and high-power characteristics [2]. Li-Ion
batteries are usually employed in such applications since
they are the most energy or power dense among modern
batteries. Nevertheless, no battery possesses both high-
power and high-energy characteristics [3], [4]. Because of
these power/energy trade-offs, energy sources for pulsed
loads cannot be constructed solely of single type of battery
since it would result in "overkill" in terms of either energy
or power. A possible feasible solution is hybridization of
high-energy batteries with ultracapacitors, since the latter
are very power dense [5], [6].
There are three topologies of battery-ultracapacitor
hybrids [7]: passive, semi-active and fully-active. The
passive topology is the most simple out of the three but
does not allow control over either of the energy sources,
therefore its performance and size is not optimal since a
large ultracapacitor is usually required. The fully active
topology ensures optimal performance, but the price and
complexity of such system will be increased. The semi-
active topology is a tradeoff between the passive and
fully-active topologies in terms of performance and .The
capacitor semi-active version of the semi-active hybrid is
discussed in this paper. Section 2 presents the battery pack
and its PSIM modeling, sections 3 and 4 deal with the
passive and semi-active topologies. Section 5 concludes
and summarizes this manuscript.

II. BATTERY PACK
Assume the following pulsed discharge profile: bursts
of 50 [A] at a frequency on 0.2 [Hz] and duty cycle of 0.1.
No current is drawn between the bursts. The average
current of such a load profile is 5 [A].
The battery pack, shown in Fig. 1, was considered. It is
constructed out of 4 series connected SAPT 32650
LiFePo
4
cells. These cells have a nominal voltage of 3.2
[V], nominal capacity of 5 [Ah], maximum discharge
current of 2C (10 [A]) and weight of about 0.135 [kg]
each.


Fig. 1. Battery pack under test.
A simulation model of the battery was created, based
on the data from various laboratory preformed discharge
and internal impedance tests. Fig. 2 compares an actual
discharge profile with the simulation results at a 1C
discharge rate. The battery pack possesses a nominal
1 978-1-4673-4681-8/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
2012 IEEE 27
th
Convention of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Israel


voltage of 12.8 [V], internal impedance of 70 [m]
(tested), energy density (calculated according test results
rather than taken from datasheet) of 110 [Wh/kg] and
power density (calculated according to maximum
continues discharge current) of 237 [W/kg].


Fig. 2. Actual Vs. simulation discharge rate 1C

The maximum continuous discharge current of the battery
pack is 10 [A], hence it cannot deliver the whole load
current. If hybridized, the ultracapacitor pack will have to
provide at least 40 [A] during the peak.
III. PASSIVE TOPOLOGY
The passive topology (Fig. 3) is the simplest of the
three topologies but not necessarily the cheapest or most
compact topology to deploy.


Fig. 3. Passive hybrid pack.

The maximum battery current for passive topology when
connected to a pulsed load can be calculated from [9] as

( )
|
|
.
|

\
|

=


T
T D
Cap Bat
DT
Bat
Load BatMax
e
e
R R
e R
I I
|
| |
1
1
1
1
(1)

where ,
Bat Cap
R R are the internal impedances of the battery
and ultracapacitor packs, respectively, D - the duty cycle
of pulsed current discharge profile, T - pulse time, C -
total capacitance of the ultracapacitor pack and

( )C R R
Cap Bat
+
=
1
| . (2)

Fig. 4. Simulation circuit of passive hybrid pack.

The ultracapacitor pack contains parallel connection of
two 16V Maxwell ultracapacitors. The ultracapacitor pack
possesses measured internal impedance of 7.5 [m] and
capacity of 108 [F].
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
0
20
40
L
o
a
d

c
u
r
r
e
n
t

[
A
]
Load, battery and ultracapacitor currents


5 6 7 8 9 10 11
0
5
10
B
a
t
t
e
r
y

c
u
r
r
e
n
t

[
A
]


5 6 7 8 9 10 11
0
20
40
Time [sec]
U
l
t
r
a
c
a
p

c
u
r
r
e
n
t

[
A
]



Fig. 5. Simulation results of passive hybrid pack.

Figure 4 presents PSIM simulation circuit for passive
topology while the results for the pulsed test load can be
seen in Fig. 5.
This passive hybrid energy pack is sufficient for
powering a load with pulsed discharge profile, but the
main component, both in price and size, is the
ultracapacitor pack. The ultracapacitor pack should not be
the main component of the system. It is added so that the
battery back would not be oversized.
In the next section a semi-active hybrid energy pack it
is suggested, where the ultracapacitor is drastically smaller
compared to the passive topology, but a DC/DC converter
needs to be added as well.
IV. CAPACITOR SEMI-ACTIVE TOPOLOGY
The semi-active topology discussed here employs a
bidirectional non-inverting DC/DC buck-boost converter
(see Fig. 6) added to the ultracapacitor pack, as shown in
Fig. 7. It is placed in series with the ultracapacitor pack. In
addition a control board needs to be added.
2



Fig. 6. Bi-directional buck/boost DC-DC converter.

By appropriately controlling the four transistors, three
different modes are achieved. The buck mode is used
when the voltage of the ultracapacitor pack is below that
of the battery pack. When its opposite the boost mode and
if the voltages nearly are equal buck/boost is used.
Moreover, a DC/DC converter cannot change the current
instantaneously, due to the inductor it contains. Hence, an
additional small capacitor bank is required on the battery
side of the converter to prevent the battery current from
exceeding the maximum discharge current.
The Fourier series for a pulsed current load is given by

)
2
cos(
1
n Ln Lavg L
t
T
n I I t I

(3)

and can be simplified as

t I I t I
dyn avg L
(4)



Fig. 7. Semi-active topology hybrid energy source.

The average current is supplied to the load via the battery
pack while ultracapacitor pack delivers the dynamic part
of the current. This dynamic current component does not
supply any energy to the load. It is supplied by the average
component of the current. The main idea of this semi-
active topology is best explained through an illustration,
given by Fig. 8, where the plot of the pulsed discharge
load in the frequency domain is shown. There are three
regions in Fig. 8: the first part close to the 0 frequency is
the average part of the current, this is delivered by the
battery pack. The second and third parts of Fig. 8 are the
dynamic parts of the current delivered by ultracapacitor
pack and additional ultracapacitor bank, respectively.
-250 -200 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
frequency(Hz)
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e
Rectangular pulse frequnecy domain


2
3 3
2
1

Fig. 8. Pulsed current profile in frequency domain

Since the battery pack is the only energy source it also
needs to account for power losses of the system. The
average actual current of battery pack will be slightly
higher than the average component of the load current,

Bat
loss
Lavg Bat
V
P
I I . (5)
Fig. 9. Control principle for semi-active topology.

As the state of charge, or SOC, of a battery decreases
so does its voltage. Therefore the current has to increase
when SOC decreases. If the batteries current would not
increase they would not fully charge the ultracapacitor
pack, and slowly decrease its voltage. Both the batteries
pack current and voltage of ultracapacitor pack have to be
measured and controlled, as given by Fig. 9. In this study
the controller was designed using a dual-loop principle
with single-carrier-double-duty-cycle operation [10].


Fig. 10. Simulation of semi-active topology hybrid energy source

3


Shown in Fig. 10 is the PSIM simulation of the semi-
active hybrid energy pack The ultracapacitor pack
employed in this simulation has an capacitance of only
5.5 [F]. This is almost 20 times smaller than the
ultracapacitor of the passive topology.
The simulation was connected to the previously
described pulsed current profile, represented by Fig. 11.
As can be seen, the battery pack provides an almost
average current of about 5.7 [A], with a small ripple. This
current has a smaller RMS value when compared to the
battery currents RMS value of passive topology. Hence
increasing the efficiency and reducing the electrical power
losses of the system.
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
0
20
40
L
o
a
d

c
u
r
r
e
n
t
[
A
]
Load, battery and ultracapacitor currents.


9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
5.5
6
6.5
B
a
t
t
e
r
y

c
u
r
r
e
n
t

[
A
]
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
0
20
40
Time [sec]
U
l
t
r
a
c
a
p

c
u
r
r
e
n
t

[
A
]

Fig. 11. Battery and ultracapacitor currents
CONCLUSION
Pulsed discharge profiles are problematic when they need
to be powered by small portable energy sources. Since
most batteries do not possess both high power and energy
characteristics but only one, usually high energy. A
feasible solution is creating a hybrid energy source, by
adding ultracapacitor pack to the battery pack in parallel.
For pulsed discharge profiles, that consists of low peak to
peak values, high frequencies and low duty cycles, the
passive topology should be considered. In other case or
when peak to peak value is extremely high the
ultracapacitor required becomes a main part of the system,
both in size and price. In addition the battery current is far
from optimal in these cases. Such discharge profiles
should deploy a semi-active or even fully-active, topology,
not discussed here. These topologies will compromise the
simplicity of the system. Bi-directional DC/DC converter
and controller need to be added; here it was placed on the
ultracapacitor. When using these semi/fully-active
topologies a relatively small ultracapacitor, when
compared to passive topology, can be deployed.
Furthermore these topologies withdraw an almost constant
current from the battery pack. This decreases the RMS
value of battery current and decreases the internal power
losses of the system. The deployment of the semi-active
hybrid energy source, not discussed here, will be presented
in further publications of this document.
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