Power enhancement of an actively controlled battery/ultracapacitor hybrid

An actively controlled battery/ultracapacitor hybrid has broad applications in pulse-operated power systems. A converter is used to actively control the power flow from a battery, to couple the battery to an ultracapacitor for power enhancement, and to deliver the power to a load efficiently. The experimental and simulation results show that the hybrid can achieve much greater specific power while reducing battery current and its internal loss. A specific example of the hybrid built from two size 18650 lithium-ion cells and two 100-F ultracapacitors achieved a peak power of 132 W which is a three-times improvement in peak power compared to the passive hybrid power source (hybrid without a converter), and a seven times improvement as compared to the lithium-ion cells alone. The design presented here can be scaled to larger or smaller power capacities for a variety of applications.