Denso Corporation

Masaya Itou

Tsuneo Maebara

Tetsuya Kobayashi

Shunichi Mizobe

Ryotaro Miura

Hidetoshi Kato

Takashi Yamashita

Junichi Iino

A battery monitoring apparatus capable of reducing power consumption. At least one monitoring integrated circuit (IC) is electrically connected to a high-voltage battery formed of a plurality of cells and configured to monitor the high-voltage battery in a plurality of modes of operation. A low-voltage power supply circuit can deliver power of a lower voltage than the power of the high-voltage battery to the at least one monitoring IC. A power supply to the at least one monitoring IC is selected from a group of the high-voltage battery and the low-voltage power supply circuit depending on the mode of operation the at least one monitoring IC.

Battery monitoring apparatus with monitoring integrated circuit selectively powered by a high voltage battery or low voltage power supply powered by a low voltage battery

A battery monitoring apparatus monitors a battery pack configured by a plurality of battery cells. The battery monitoring apparatus includes a main monitoring unit, a sub monitoring unit and a control unit. The main monitoring unit monitors a plurality of physical quantities indicating a battery state of the battery pack. The sub monitoring unit monitors a part of the physical quantities separately from the main monitoring unit. The control unit detects malfunction of the battery pack on the basis of at least one of a monitoring result of the main monitoring unit and a monitoring result of the sub monitoring unit.

Battery monitoring apparatus

A circuit protector includes a plurality of detection lines that connect between a battery pack and a monitoring circuit, an overvoltage protection element connected between the detection lines that keeps the voltage applied to the monitoring circuit at a fixed voltage, and a circuit protection element disposed in each detection line that disconnects an electrical link between the monitoring circuit and the battery pack when a current beyond a predetermined current value flows into the detection line. When the excess voltage occurs in the battery pack, the overvoltage protection element maintains between each detection line in a short circuit state, and the circuit protection element disconnects the electrical link between the battery pack and the monitoring circuit by a short-circuit current that flows between the detection lines via the overvoltage protection element.

Circuit protector

A discharging circuit, connected to both terminals of a lithium battery, includes a first discharge resistor, a second discharge resistor, and a transistor for occasionally discharging the lithium battery to reduce the SOC difference among respective lithium batteries constituting a combination battery. A voltage detecting circuit detects a terminal voltage of the lithium battery via the first discharge resistor. A discharge controller judges a failure occurring in the discharging circuit based on a comparison between a terminal voltage value detected when the transistor is turned on and a terminal voltage value detected when the transistor is turned off.

Apparatus for discharging a combination battery consisting of a plurality of secondary batteries

A set battery which generates a high voltage comprises a number of battery modules connected to each other in series. A module voltage of each of the battery modules is detected by a corresponding differential voltage detecting circuit and is transmitted to an A/D convertor. Each of Several voltage detecting blocks is constituted by a plurality of the differential voltage detecting circuits for detecting module voltages of a plurality of the battery modules contiguous to each other. Each of the differential voltage detecting circuits belonging to the same voltage detecting block is applied with a common reference potential which is used to detect the module voltage. The reference potential is set to values which differ from each other for the respective voltage detecting blocks.

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Masaya Itou