Extending battery management systems for making informed decisions on battery reuse

Abstract

battery management system (BMS) is an embedded system for monitoring and controlling complex battery systems in high-tech goods, such as electric vehicles or military communication devices. BMSs are often designed for simplicity and cost efficiency, storing few crucial data on the condition of batteries. With an increasing trend to reuse batteries, BMSs face a need to implement additional functionality to support decision-making tasks. This functionality requires rich data on the structure, usage history, and condition of a battery that is not supported by current BMS type series. Based on expert interviews and document analyses, we sketch a design theory for implementing BMSs that supply the data required for making decisions on how to best reuse battery systems.