Comparison of passive cell balancing and active cell balancing for automotive batteries

This paper presents a quantitative performance analysis of a conventional passive cell balancing method and a proposed active cell balancing method for automotive batteries. The proposed active cell balancing method was designed to perform continuous cell balancing during charge and discharge with high balancing current. An experimentally validated model was used to simulate the balancing process of both balancing circuits for a high capacity battery module. The results suggest that the proposed method can improve the power loss and extend the discharge time of a battery module. Hence, a higher energy output can be yielded.