Reconfigurable Battery Techniques and Systems: A Survey

Battery packs with a large number of battery cells are becoming more and more widely adopted in electronic systems, such as robotics, renewable energy systems, energy storage in smart grids, and electronic vehicles. Therefore, a well-designed battery pack is essential for battery applications. In the literature, the majority of research in battery pack design focuses on battery management system, safety circuit, and cell-balancing strategies. Recently, the reconfigurable battery pack design has gained increasing attentions as a promising solution to solve the problems existing in the conventional battery packs and associated battery management systems, such as low energy efficiency, short pack lifespan, safety issues, and low reliability. One of the most prominent features of reconfigurable battery packs is that the battery cell topology can be dynamically reconfigured in the real-time fashion based on the current condition (in terms of the state of charge and the state of health) of battery cells. So far, there are several reconfigurable battery schemes having been proposed and validated in the literature, all sharing the advantage of cell topology reconfiguration that ensures balanced cell states during charging and discharging, meanwhile providing strong fault tolerance ability. This survey is undertaken with the intent of identifying the state-of-the-art technologies of reconfigurable battery as well as providing review on related technologies and insight on future research in this emerging area.