DIGEST Submitted to IEEE APEC 03, Feb 9-13, Miami, FL

Active Power Sharing in

Hybrid Battery/Capacitor Power Sources
I Introduction
The objective of this work is to determine to what extent the performance of a battery/capacitor hybrid
power source can be improved by isolating the battery through a power converter. The system under study consists
of a battery array, an ultracapacitor array, a pulsed load, and optionally a DC-DC converter, as shown in Fig. 1. In
the first case, the battery, the ultracapacitor and the load are directly connected in parallel. Thus they share a
common bus voltage. In the second case, the battery is isolated from the load through a DC-DC converter, and the
load voltage and battery current are controlled by the DC-DC converter. The motivation for adding the power
converter is two-fold. First, it isolates the battery from extremely large current transients which might damage it, and
second, it allows the battery to work at fairly high efficiency by minimizing internal losses. (Though at the expense
of losses in the power converter.)

DC-DC
Converter

Battery Pulse load

Ultracapacitor
Battery Ultracapacitor
Pulse load

Fig.1 System under study, passive battery/ultracapacitor hybrid (Left), active

battery/ultracapacitor/converter hybrid (Right)
The two forms of the system were studied by simulation and experiment. Simulations were conducted by
using the Virtual Test Bed (VTB)[1] environment with validated models for the Sony US18650 lithium ion battery
and for the Maxwell PC100 ultracapacitor. The controller for the converter was designed by using Matlab/Simulink,
and then imported into Virtual Test Bed environment for the simulation studies, and then compiled into an
executable and downloaded onto a dSPACE real time controller for the experimental studies.
We will describe results for a particular pulsed current load at 0.2 pulses per second, 10% duty. The power
capability of the converter-assisted system, is increased by nearly a factor of 3 compared to the passive system, the
output voltage range is broadened, the output voltage is better regulated, the battery current ripple is minimized, and
the weight and volume of the system are reduced.

II Passive battery/capacitor hybrid

Under pulsed load power requirements, a passive battery/capacitor hybrid has several advantages over a
battery alone, such as larger peak power capacity, higher efficiency, and longer battery runtime [2,3,4]. However,
these advantages are limited by the fact that the battery and capacitor are directly connected, which yields:
1. The battery voltage cannot be different from the capacitor voltage, and capacitor array size is determined
by the battery voltage since the ultracapacitor has its own upper voltage limit.
2. The power enhancement of the passive hybrid source is limited by the current distribution between the
battery and the capacitor, which is determined by their respective internal resistances.
3. The terminal voltage of the passive hybrid is not regulated, but instead follows the discharge curve of the
battery and can vary considerably between fully charged and fully depleted.

Simulation Study with VTB

Detailed models of the lithium ion battery (Sony US18650)[5] and ultracapacitor (Maxwell PC100)[6,7,8]
were previously validated. Fig. 2 shows the simulation schematic and results for the pulse current study (0.2 Hz,

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DIGEST Submitted to IEEE APEC 03, Feb 9-13, Miami, FL

10% duty, 11Amps). Table 1 lists the characteristics of the components in this system.. In order to protect the
battery, we limit the maximum battery output current to 2.4A and set the battery cutoff voltage at 2.5V/cell.

Fig. 2 Schematic in VTB and simulation result, solid line is load current, dash is
ultracapacitor current and dash-dot is battery current
Table 1 Components of passive hybrid
Component Array configuration Package Weight Package Volume Other
(Parallel Series) (g) (cm3)
Sony 21 84 138.4 1.4Ah/cell
US18650 (42g/cell 2) (69.2 cm3/cell Nominal 3.8V/cell
2) IMAX < 2.4A
VCutoff = 2.5V/cell
Maxwell 12 74 64.0 VMAX < 2.7V/cell
PC100 (37g/cell 2) (32 cm3/cell 2)
Pulse Load Ideal pulse load
For safety considerations the battery is operated with protection circuitry and that limits the battery current
to 2.4A. But the passive hybrid is able to supply peak currents up to 11 A, and a peak power of 41.8W (11A3.8V),
which is 2.3 times greater than the battery alone (22.4A3.8V=18.24W) can supply. However, the battery current
still has large variations and reaches the peak value at the end of each pulse. More comparisons between battery
alone and battery/capacitor hybrid can be found in Table 3.

III Active battery/ultracapacitor/converter hybrid

Adding a DC/DC converter between the battery and the ultracapacitor yields the following advantages.
1. The capacitor voltage can be different from the battery voltage, which offers a lot of freedom with respect
to the design of the battery and capacitor arrays.
2. The power capacity can be much higher than for the passive source because the battery current can be
independently limited to a safe value.
3. The Power source terminal voltage can be kept relatively constant, with a smaller variation than for the
passive source.
4. The efficiency could be improved because the battery operates with lower losses at lower currents, but the
tradeoff is against efficiency of the dc/dc converter.
5. With an optimized design, the weight of the power source for a given peak power can be smaller than that
of a passive power source for the same load.
6. The dc/dc converter can also serve as the battery charger while the passive hybrid power source requires a
separate battery charger.

VTB simulation
Fig.3 shows the VTB schematic of the active power source. The simulink block is a wrapper object that
allows a user to implement control algorithm in Matlab/Simulink and co-simulate with VTB interactively. Fig.3 also
shows the Simulink implementation of the PI controller for the DC-DC converter.

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DIGEST Submitted to IEEE APEC 03, Feb 9-13, Miami, FL

Fig. 3 VTB schematic of active power source and its control algorithm implemented in
Matlab/Simulink

Experimental system construction

The electrical schematic of the experimental system, including the circuit of the DC/DC converter, is
shown in Fig .4. A dSPACE real time controller determines the duty of the DC/DC converter. The same control
algorithm used in the simulation is also used here.

PC
dSPACE
(Matlab/Simulink)

DC/DC
Converter

Battery Ultra Cap Pulse load

Fig.4 Diagram of experimental system and the circuit of the DC/DC converter
Table 2 Specifications of active power source
Battery Pack (SonyUS18650) 2 series cells, totaling, 84 g, 138.4 cm3
Ultracapacitor Pack (Maxwell 2 series cells, totaling, 74 g, 64.0 cm3
PC100)
Pulse Load Agilent Technologies electronic load, Model 6060B
dSPACE dSPACE DS1103 PPC Controller Board
DC/DC Converter about 30g, 30 cm3

Pulse current discharge (Period =5s, Duty 0.1)

Test_1: Ion = 10A; Ioff = 0A

The simulation results are shown in Fig.5. During each pulse, the terminal voltage at the ultracapacitor
drops from approximately 4.2V to about 3.9V. The battery current is quite constant, equal to the average load
current. No high current impulses flow through the battery. The capacitor supplies the entire load current in excess
of the average value.

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DIGEST Submitted to IEEE APEC 03, Feb 9-13, Miami, FL

Fig. 5 VTB simulation result: ultracapacitor voltage (left), current distribution (right) in
which dotted curve is for load current, solid is for ultracapacitor and dash is for converter
load side output current.
Experimental data is shown in Figs. 6 and 7. The average battery current is 0.472A; current ripple is 14mA
(0.478A-0.464A); and ultracapacitor voltage ripple is 0.37V (4.25V-3.88V);

Fig.6 Ultracapacitor voltage and battery current

Fig.7 Duty ratio of controller and (load-side) output current from the converter
An interesting phenomenon that can be seen in Figs.6 and 7 is that battery current actually decreases during
the high current impulses. We control the converter (load-side) output current to be constant and equal to the
average load current, during the pulse on time, the ultracapacitor terminal voltage drops which decreases the output
power of the converter, so the battery current actually decreases.

Test_2: Ion = 40A; Ioff = 0A

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DIGEST Submitted to IEEE APEC 03, Feb 9-13, Miami, FL

Fig. 8 Experimental data of battery current and ultracapacitor voltage

Next we increased the load current to 40A, or approximately 16 times the current capacity of the battery
itself. Experimental data is shown in Fig. 8. The average battery current is 2.28A; current ripple is 180mA (2.35A-
2.17A); and the voltage ripple on the Ultracapacitor is 1.47V (4.30V-2.83V). The peak battery current (2.35 A)
nearly reaches its upper limit.

III Conclusion
Table 3 shows comparisons among the three different kinds of power sources for a particular case of pulse
current discharge (period 5 seconds and duty ratio 10%). On the bases of mass density of power or volume density
of power, the active hybrid power source is clearly superior. (This assumes miniaturization of the controller from the
general-purpose controller that we used.)
Table 3. Comparison among three kinds of power source under specified test condition
Battery Alone Passive Batt/Cap Active Batt/Cap/Conv
Package 2 cells in parallel Battery: 2 parallel 1 series Battery: 1 parallel 2 series
Capacitor: 1 parallel 2 series Capacitor: 1 parallel 2 series
Weight (g) 84 158 188
Volume (cm3) 138 202 232
Maximum Power Capacity 18.2 41.8 132
(W)
Pulse Power Mass 217 264 702
Density (W/Kg)
Pulse Power Volume 0.132 0.207 0.570
Density (W/cm3)
Terminal Voltage 1.7V 1.7V < 1.47V
Variation (4.2V-2.5V) (4.2V-2.5V)

IV Reference
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Workshop on Advanced Battery Modeling, Arlington, VA, Aug 14-16, 2001
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