2017 International Conference on Sustainable Energy Engineering and Application (ICSEEA)
Passive Balancing Battery Management System using
MOSFET Internal Resistance as Balancing Resistor
Amin1, *, Kristian Ismail1, Asep Nugroho1, Sunarto Kaleg1
1
Research Centre for Electrical Power and Mechatronics, Indonesian Institute of Sciences
Bandung, Indonesia
*amin@lipi.go.id
Abstract—Balancing process is crucial to keeping battery
lifespan and protecting the battery cell in series connection.
Commonly, passive balancing is widely used in BMS because
cheap and simple to implement. The passive balancing used
passive element (resistor) to dispose of the excess charge of
battery. The use of this resistor is quite effective for small battery
capacity. For large battery capacity used in EV and HEV, a big
power resistor is needed so that the balancing time of the battery
is faster. With a large power resistor for each battery cell will
result in BMS hardware becomes large. In this paper was
designed a passive balancing BMS that combines the power
resistor and MOSFET internal resistance as a balancing resistor.
The use of MOSFET internal resistance will save space on BMS
hardware compared with power resistor with greater balancing
current capability. The proposed method was applied to 1P15S
battery pack consisting of 15 cells LiFePO4 battery with a
capacity of 200 Ah. The preliminary experimental result shows
that using internal resistance of the MOSFET as a balancing
resistor was feasible and effectively done. The balancing current
of the battery is determined by the internal resistance value of
the MOSFET.
Keywords—battery; BMS; battery pack; lithium iron
phosphate; MOSFET; passive balancing
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy storage systems (ESS) play an important role in
electric vehicles (EV), hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and
plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The performance of
these vehicles is highly dependent on the ESS. Development
of EV in recent years makes lithium batteries, as the energy
source for EV, attract more attention for its high energy and
power density and long lifespan [1]. Lithium batteries have
role key on the performance of EV, especially assign of the
driving range of the vehicle. Depending on the application, a
large number of cells (tens or hundreds) are connected in
series to build a battery string with the required voltage. Each
battery when operating in series has a slightly different
capacity due to manufacturing tolerances and environmental
conditions. After several charge/discharge cycles, the battery
pack tends to go out of balance. Cell imbalance has always
occurred in the battery pack system. Without treat it, an
individual cell will be degraded. Finally, the capacity of the
battery pack will be decreased quickly during operation and
decrease lifespan. Lithium batteries are frail to overcharge and
deep discharge, which can devastate the battery and shorten
the battery lifespan. Individual cells in a stack of multiple cells
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in series tend to vary in capacity, which leads to a reduced
battery capacity as weak cells reach charge and discharge
limits earlier. The use of an electronic battery management
system (BMS) for monitoring lithium batteries is essential for
safety and operational reasons. It prevents cell failures caused
by overcharging or deep discharging, monitors the
temperature, and maintain each cell of the battery within its
safe operating range [2]. One of the most important features of
a BMS is cell balancing. Cell balancing techniques help to
distribute energy equally among battery cells. Without cell
balancing, a portion of the capacity or energy in the battery
pack will be wasted, especially for long battery string which
operates in frequent cycling condition.
Generally, there are two kinds of cell balancing methods,
namely passive cell balancing and active cell balancing. The
main difference between both methods is that passive cell
balancing balance the series connected cells by burning the
extra energy of the most charged cells and the active cell
balancing is redistribute the energy of the strong cells to the
weak cells. Passive cell balancing is widely used in industrial
applications due to its simplicity, reliability and low-cost
characteristics [3], [4]. Usually, the passive method disposes
of some electric charge from overcharge cell through resistor
element until matches to state of charge (SoC) reference or
voltage reference. [3]–[9]. Compare to the previous paper, in
this paper, an internal resistance of MOSFET is used as
balancing resistor beside using resistor element to dispose of
overcharged cells to match the threshold voltage during the
charging process.
II. BATTERY PACK
A LiFeP04 battery is a type of rechargeable battery which
has high energy density (> 120 Wh/kg) and high cycle life
(>5000 times). The proposed passive BMS was implemented
in a 1P15S 200 Ah LiFePO4 battery pack. This battery pack
design can be found in [10]. The battery pack consists of 15
series connected LiFePO4 with a nominal voltage of 3.2 V and
capacity of 200 Ah to produce 48 V which is a nominal
voltage of the golf car. It is capable to store 9.6 kWh of energy
at the nominal voltage. For Battery charging, common practice
is to use 3.6 V per cell voltage. The maximum voltage of each
cell is 4 V, and the minimum voltage of each cell is 2.8 V. In
this battery pack design, the maximum charging voltage, the
balancing voltage, and the minimum voltage per cell are 3.6
V, 3.55 V, and 2.75 V, respectively.
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 2017 International Conference on Sustainable Energy Engineering and Application (ICSEEA)

Fig. 1. Blok diagram of the proposed BMS

III. CELL BALANCING DESIGN
Passive cell balancing is usually used during charge
process when the voltage of a cell has reached full voltage
limit. This method only appropriate for charging, because a
some of the energy in a battery will be disposed of. Balancing
algorithms for passive cell balancing usually based on voltage
balancing strategy. The balancing strategy consists of
detecting the strongest cell (Vmax) and compared with a
threshold voltage (Vth). If the voltage of a cell outstripped the
threshold voltage, some of the energy in the battery will be
disposed of through the balancing resistor (RBal) combined
with an internal resistance of MOSFET (RDS(on)) and prevents
the cell from overvoltage. Low RBal and RDS(on) values can
reduce balancing time, but it increases heat because some of
the energy is dissipated by passive element. Balancing current
of C/100 is adequate for this battery system [4]. Here the 200
Ah result in 2 A balancing current which at 3.55 V produces
1.775 Ÿ for the balancing resistor.
Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of the proposed BMS. The
working principle of this proposed BMS is that each cell was
monitored by an ATtiny45V microcontroller to monitor its
voltage. This design does not have problems with floating
ground since each balancing module is supplied from one cell
and is electrically connected only to the same cell. Due to the
battery charger implement constant current and constant
voltage (CCCV), the master microcontroller manages the
battery charging. For the master control, an ATmega2560 was
used. If the voltage of each cell is in normal condition (2.75 V
- 3.6 V), then the master microcontroller will send an enable
signal and the magnitude of the charger's current. If there is an
abnormal cell voltage occurred, then the master
microcontroller will send a warning alarm. This charging
process will continue until the cell voltage reaches the
reference balancing voltage (3.55 V). If there is one cell that
reaches a voltage of 3.55V, then the master microcontroller
will reduce the charge current to a certain level. The master
microcontroller also activates the balancing circuit via signal
conditioning circuit, and this overvoltage cell does balancing
process. During cell balancing process, the charger will still
supply the current with a certain value until the battery pack
voltage reaches 53.25 V. If the maximum voltage of the
battery pack has been reached, the charger will be turned off,
and the battery pack is in full charge state.
The schematic of the proposed single cell BMS with
passive balancing is shown in Fig. 2, whereas the flowchart of
the BMS controller is provided in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2. The schematic of the proposed BMS

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 2017 International Conference on Sustainable Energy Engineering and Application (ICSEEA)

Fig. 3. Flowchart of the BMS controller

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In the proposed BMS, each cell was monitored by an
ATtiny45V microcontroller to monitor its voltage. A master
microcontroller read the battery cells condition via signal
conditioning circuits whether the cell voltage has reached the
reference balancing voltage. In addition, in the case of
overvoltage and under voltage condition, the microcontroller
will send a signal to the master microcontroller via signal
conditioning circuit to activate the alarm. The master
microcontroller is an ATmega2560 microcontroller. It has 54
digital input/output pins and 16 analog inputs that sufficient
for this proposed BMS. A LiFePO4 passive BMS prototype
has been designed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed
BMS as shown in Fig. 4. The specification of the proposed
BMS can be seen in Table I.
In this BMS prototype, the resistance of the power resistor
was 5 ȍ combine with internal resistance MOSFET (RDS(on)) of
1.5 ȍ so that the balancing resistor for each cell is 1.154 ȍ.
The balancing current for balancing voltage of 3.55 V is
approximately 3.07 A. The balancing current can be enlarged
to speed up the balancing time by decreasing the internal
resistance of the MOSFET (RDS(on)). The Atmel ATA6870
Evaluation Board was used for measurement and monitoring
of LiFePO4 battery pack. in this evaluation board, battery cell
voltage is monitored in parallel by the related 12-bit ADC and
can read 1 mV voltage difference.
Experimental test for a 1P15S battery pack for the
proposed BMS has been implemented as shown in Fig. 5. The
experimental results show that cells voltage are maintained at
the reference balancing voltage and prevent the cell from
overcharging. Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 present cells voltage for some

TABLE I THE PROPOSED BMS SPECIFICATION

BMS specification Value

No. of cell 15 Cells
Battery pack voltage 48 V
Cell max charge voltage 3.6 V
Cell balancing voltage 3.55 V
Cell min voltage 2.75 V
Power Resistor: 0.71 A
Cell balancing current
Internal resistance MOSFET: 2.36 A

Fig. 4. The proposed BMS prototype

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 2017 International Conference on Sustainable Energy Engineering and Application (ICSEEA)
3.6

3.5

Voltage (V)
3.4
V7
V15
3.3

3.2

3.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
time (h)

Fig. 8. Detail cells voltage when increase and maintained at reference

balancing voltage
Fig. 5. Experimental test for the proposed BMS
V. CONCLUSION
charging process. In Fig. 6, three cell voltage V2, V7, and V15 BMS with passive balancing comprising power resistor
are lower than other cell voltage. After several hours of the and internal resistance MOSFET as balancing resistor was
charging process, this three cell voltage increases, and other successfully investigated. The proposed BMS can be used to
12 cells are maintained at reference balancing voltage by remove the excess energy (overcharge) on the LiFePO4 battery
removing the excess energy (overcharge) via resistor power cell. Experimental results on 15 LiFePO4 series battery for
and MOSFET internal resistance. Then, the cell voltage V7 some charging process demonstrate that cell maximum voltage
and V15 reached the balancing voltage and maintained at the is well limited and the proposed BMS can maintain the cell
reference balancing voltage by removing the excess energy voltage according to the reference balancing voltage. In this
(overcharge) on the LiFePO4 battery cells while cell V2 still experiment results, the balancing time still takes a long time
increase in charging process. The detail voltage of cell V7 and due to the huge difference between the cell with the largest
V15 when the voltage increases and maintained at the capacity (highest voltage) and the cell with the smallest
reference balancing voltage is shown in Fig. 8. Another capacity (lowest voltage). This shortcoming of passive cell
battery pack charging process is shown in Fig. 7. In Fig. 7, balancing can be overcome by using active cell balancing.
only one cell voltage V2 are lower than other cell voltage.
During the charging process, cell voltage V2 increases and ACKNOWLEDGMENT
another cell voltage reached the balancing voltage and Thank you to all members in Transportation Equipment
maintained at the reference balancing voltage. research group, Research Centre for Electrical Power and
Mechatronics which has already supported the battery
3.6
management system research and development.
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