Nissan Motor Company Limited

Yukari Tsukamoto

Takeshi Fujita

Chiduru Matsuyama

Tsuyoshi Morita

A power supply device () includes a parallel connection of a plurality of series circuits each including a secondary battery (A,B) and a relay (A,B) connected in series with the secondary battery. A control apparatus for controlling ON/OFF timings of the relays (A,B) includes a control device () to set a time difference between the ON/OFF timings of the relays (A,B) to control the supply of power at optimum timings.

Power supply controller

A battery power supply device includes an alternating-current power source, a secondary cell connected to the alternating-current power source, a first switch for selectively connecting or cutting off a cell and the alternating-current power source, the first switch being disposed between the battery and the alternating-current power source, and a ground fault sensing device for sensing a ground fault in the battery, the ground fault sensing device being connected closer to the battery than the first switch; the ground fault sensing device sensing a ground fault in the battery when the first switch is off.

Power supply apparatus

When connecting a plurality of cells in parallel, an operation to calculate an inrush current flowing when a pair of cells are selected from the cells for the parallel-connection and parallel-connected for all cell combinations. A cell combination, whose inrush current is the largest in the cell combinations which are judged that the calculated inrush current is less than or equal to a predetermined upper limit current value, is set as a cell combination to parallel-connect the cells.

Cell connection control device

A power control device includes a relay switch, a controller, a sensor and a battery controller. The relay switch is configured to turn electricity on and off between a battery for supplying a load with electric power and the load. The controller predicts load power characteristics indicating characteristics of power consumed by the load over time, and predicts, based on the predicted load power characteristics, charge/discharge power characteristics indicating characteristics of charge/discharge power of the battery over time. The sensor detects voltage between the terminals of the battery. The controller specify a voltage detection period from the charge/discharge power characteristics that was predicted, over which the charge/discharge power of the battery is equal to or less than a prescribed power over a prescribed period. The battery controller turns off the relay switch and detects the voltage between the battery terminals during the voltage detection period.

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Sagamihara, Japan

Yukari Tsukamoto