Design of a module switch for battery pack reconfiguration in high-power applications

This paper presents a novel approach for battery pack reconfiguration in high-power applications, where many high capacity elementary cells are series-connected to meet the power and energy requirements of the application. The novelty of the approach is that reconfiguration is applied at the module level rather than at the cell level, being a module a segment of the battery pack. A very good trade-off between reconfiguration flexibility and complexity of the implementation is achieved. A key point of the proposed architecture is the module switch, which must be able to connect or bypass a battery module by sustaining high currents without degrading the overall battery efficiency. The design of the module switch is presented, together with an implementation suitable for the battery pack of a hybrid fuel-cell small van. Experimental results show that the switch operates with continuous battery currents up to 160 A. To our knowledge, these experimental results are the first published on battery pack reconfiguration in high-power applications.