Design of a battery/ultracapacitor

energy storage system for

electric vehicle applications
Patrizia Livreri, Vincenzo Castiglia, Filippo Pellitteri, Rosario Miceli, member IEEE
Department of Energy, Information
and Mathematical models
University of Palermo
Palermo, Italy
filippo.pellitteri@dieet.unipa.it, patrizia.livreri@unipa.it, rosario.miceli@unipa.it, vincenzo.castiglia@unipa.it

Abstract – The battery/ultracapacitors (UCs) integration
is able to provide notable advantages in the power
management of an electric vehicle (EV), in terms of
capability of both high energy storage and readiness to
deal with fast load variations. In order to manage the
charge (or discharge) of the UCs from (or towards) a DC
voltage bus, a proper bi-directional converter is required.
In this paper, a bi-directional DC-DC converter in
connection with a stack of UCs is described and some
power simulation results are provided. The proposed
converter is a B2R (buck-boost regulator) type. The load
is represented by a 40kW peak power, kept for a time
window of 3s, as required by the Worldwide harmonized
Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP).
Index Terms – Ultracapacitors; DC-DC converter; Electric
Vehicle; Power Management; Battery
I. INTRODUCTION
The increasing mobility demand and the significant
growth of the world population will contribute to a
higher and higher number of circulating vehicles in the
next years. At the current oil consumption rate and
considering that the discovery of new oil reserves is
slower than the demand increase, the world will run out
of oil in 2050 [1]. Furthermore, the oil exploitation by
vehicles notably contributes to both pollution and
global warming, with dangerous effects for the
environment and the population. Considering that
among the globally consumed oil, the 60% is used for
transportation, an ever-growing interest in electric
vehicles (EV) is being expressed by researchers,
politicians, producers and consumers, in order to
satisfy the demand and limit the pollution.
Among the EV on-board energy-storage devices,
batteries, fuel cells (FCs) and ultracapacitors (UCs) are
the most known. Batteries and FCs guarantee large
amounts of energy, but the latter ones are less
convenient because of their slow time constants.
Therefore, the batteries represent the most important
energy contribution in an EV. On the other hand, UCs
have large power density and present a higher number
of charge/discharge cycles with respect to batteries [2-
3].
Since each energy source is not able to provide top
performances in terms of both energy and power
density, the hybridization turns out to be a reliable
solution.
The use of a Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) is
therefore particularly convenient for a complete
satisfaction of the EV demands, in terms of both
energy density and power density [4].
An interesting hybrid architecture for electric vehicles
is the one based on the battery/UCs combination [5]:
the battery should provide to the vehicle the average
power level, while the ultracapacitors should react to
the peak power demands [6-7].
The use of the only battery technology for ensuring the
peak power pulses requested during acceleration and
braking of the vehicle is possible, but at the price of a
severe degradation of the battery performances in terms
of weight, cost and lifetime [8]. Different studies have
proven the importance of the ultracapacitors integration
in order to reduce the battery ageing-effects without
oversizing the battery itself. Nevertheless, a significant
economical convenience of the UC/battery integration
is still far to be proven, being strongly dependent on
external factors, such as the price fluctuations [9].
In addition, a HESS requires the combination between
an optimal sizing and a proper power management
strategy, to precisely determine the size of the different
energy sources and to control the power sharing
between them according to various possible scenarios
of mobility [10], [17-21].
In this paper, a bi-directional DC-DC converter for the
ultracapacitors application is proposed. In Fig. 1 a
possible architecture of the battery/UCs system is
shown. Two bi-directional DC-DC converters connect
the battery and the UCs to a common bus. The bus
voltage is generated by means of the battery-connected
DC-DC converter, which also regulates the average
current required by the load; the UCs-connected DC-
DC converter deals with the peak power load demands:
if the load requires a power peak, the ultracapacitors
are discharged; if the ultracapacitors require to be
recharged, the energy is recovered from the bus.
In this paper, the focus is on the analysis and design of
a specific UCs-connected bi-directional DC-DC
converter. The proposed converter is able to manage
some typical problems concerning the use of the UCs.
For the real exploitation of an ultracapacitance, its
voltage level should largely vary. Furthermore, UCs
generally show high equivalent series resistances, so a
certain care has to be addressed to the power losses of
the whole system and to the voltage rating of the

978-1-5386-6282-3/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

designed converter. The simulation results will be
shown, considering a single module whose power level
is 5kW. A 40kW prototype will be assembled on the
basis of 8 interleaved parallel modules.
Fig. 1 – A possible architecture of a battery/ultracaps hybrid system.
The stack of ultracapacitors has a (32-64)V voltage
range and the bus voltage is 48V, as highlighted in
Tab. I.
TABLE I
MAIN SPECIFICATIONS OF THE UCS-BUS SYSTEM
Vuc,max Vuc,min Vbus Power for single stack
64V 32V 48V 5kW
II. THE STACK OF ULTRACAPACITORS
For the calculation of a standard energy consumption
in the electric vehicles, the considered reference is the
Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure
(WLTP) [11]. The used stack of ultracapacitors shall be
able to suitably react to these typical peak power
requirements. According to the data related to the
extra-high speed range in WLTP, the target of the
designed converter consists of a maximum 40kW
power, kept for the duration of 3s. To manage the issue
of dealing with UCs, some basilar considerations need
to be done first. The energy E stored in a capacitance C
is:
= (1)
2
The energy ΔE provided to a load connected to the
capacitance arises from the voltage excursion from the
maximum Vmax to the minimum Vmin:
∆ = − (2)
2 2
According to (2), a 50% ΔV variation leads to a
delivered energy amount equal to the 75% of the initial
energy. In this case the energy capability would be
proportional to the maximum voltage according to the
following:
3
= (3)
8
Therefore, high Vmax and ΔV are convenient from the
energy point of view. For a proper design of the DC-
DC power converter between the UCs stack and the
voltage bus, these high values should be taken into
account.
In the scientific literature, examples of step-up
converters for the management of the
charging/discharging of an ultracapacitance are often
given [12-14]. Nevertheless, to deal with a high
maximum voltage of the UC, a step-up converter is not
appropriate any more. Moreover, if also a high ΔV is
expected, the minimum UC voltage after a discharge
could go down below the bus voltage, so that a step-up
conversion is needed again.
After a preliminary investigation of several possible
topologies of switching converter cells, as reported in
[15], a buck-boost type converter has been selected for
the management of the UCs stack, so that either a step-
up or a step-down operation is possible.
A buck-boost topology is highly flexible, providing the
opportunity to manage a large ΔV regardless of the bus
voltage level, as suggested by Fig. 2.
Vuc,O.C. (the open-circuit UCs voltage) is the UC voltage
at the maximum charge, without current flowing. As a
discharge begins, Vuc (the UCs voltage) decreases and
goes down below the bus voltage. It can be noted that
not only the discharge contributes to decrease the
ultracapacitance voltage, but also its equivalent series
resistance Ruc, whose value depends on the chosen
commercial ultracaps and on the specific series-parallel
connection required to assemble the whole stack. Each
selected ultracapacitor is the BCAP0310, showing a
310F capacitance and a 2.2mΩ equivalent series
resistance (ESR) [16].
Fig. 2 – Voltage levels concerning the UCs and the bus and their
evolution during the UC discharge.
 −
= (5)
+ +
III. CONTROL STRATEGY FOR THE UCS
MANAGEMENT
The bus current Ibus is:
The designed converter is a B2R (buck-boost
regulator), shown in Fig. 3.
= (6)

The designed B2R converter represents a single 5kW

Fig. 3 – Schematic of the B2R converter.
power module out of 8, so that the total maximum
power is 40kW. Each sub-stack is made of 24 series
UCs; the whole stack will be made of 8 parallel sub-
stacks, for a total number of 192 ultracapacitors. The 8
power modules are better to be interleaved to minimize
the filter sizing. In Tab. II the main features of the
series stack of ultracapacitors are shown.

The 4 MOSFETs ensure a bi-directional operation, TABLE II

meaning that the current can be either positive or MAIN FEATURES OF THE SERIES STACK OF ULTRACAPS
Ci ESRi Vi,max ns UCs C ESR Vmax
negative respectively in case of discharge or charge of 310F 2.2mΩ 2.7V 24 13F 53mΩ 64V
the UCs, considering Vin as the UCs voltage and Vout as
the bus voltage. Two possible modes are present: in the
discharging mode, the inductance current is positive; in
The control law aims at the regulation of the bus
the charging mode, the inductance current is negative.
current. According to a 5kW power demand, the
When no current flows, the ratio conversion M of the maximum current provided to the bus from each power
power converter is: module is about 105A, due to a bus voltage of 48V.
These features are reported in Tab. III.
≝ = ≝ (4)
1− TABLE III
MAIN SPECIFICATIONS OF THE SYSTEM
where D is the duty-cycle of the M1-M3 gate signals, Max
Max Max bus
Vuc,max Vuc,min Vbus discharge
whereas (1-D) is the duty-cycle of the M2-M4 gate Power current
time
signals, also named as D1 and D2 respectively. To have 64V 32V 48V 5kW 105A 3s
a positive or negative current, the duty-cycle is
required to be higher or lower than the one in (4).
In Fig. 4 a complete scheme of the DC-DC converter is The regulation is achieved through a PWM control of
shown, along with the LC filters, connecting the the bus current, as highlighted in the diagram of Fig. 5.
converter to the UCs and to the bus. The resistances R1
and R2 respectively represent the equivalent series DC
resistances seen by the converter towards the UC side
and the bus side; V1 and V2 are the Thevenin equivalent
voltages of the ultracap stack and of the bus, whereas
RL is the equivalent series resistance of the inductance
L.

Fig. 5 – Scheme of the implemented control strategy

for the bus current regulation.

The measured current is Ibus, while the set reference is

Fig. 4 – Schematic of the B2R converter and filters.
The inductance current IL is dependent on the voltage
sources, the duty-cycle and the losses as follows:
Ibus,set. The error e is the input of a chain of stages
respectively showing the Laplace transfer functions
Gc(s), GPWM and Gio,d(s). The first stage is the
compensation network; the second stage is the PWM
stage, where the duty-cycle is generated; the third stage
is the duty-to-current power stage.
The following Bode diagrams, shown in Figg. 6 and 7,
referring to the power stage Giod(s) of the considered
B2R, to the introduced correction Gc(s) and to the
resulting open-loop transfer function F(s), have been
obtained, as simulated in MATLAB environment. Two 200
Ibus Iuc

different conditions referring to the minimum and 100

maximum values of duty-cycle have been investigated.

The aim is the evaluation of the stability margins at the 0

extreme operative conditions, so that the control -100

strategy can be accepted on the whole working range of -200

the converter. 80
Vbus Vuc

70

60

50

40

30

20
1 2 3 4 5 6
Time (s)

Fig. 8 – Time response of some simulated waveforms: in the up

window, the bus and the UC currents are highlighted in red and blue
respectively; in the down window, the bus and the UC voltages are
highlighted in red and blue respectively.

In Fig. 9 the time response of the bus and UC currents

is shown, referring to the transition from the discharge
to the charge phase.
Ibus Iuc

Fig. 6 - Bode diagrams of the main transfer functions for the control 150

loop design and evaluation, at the minimum duty-cycle: 100

the phase and gain margins (mφ and mg) 50

and the bandwidth (fc) are highlighted

0

-50

-100

-150

-200

2.999 3 3.001 3.002 3.003

Time (s)

Fig. 9 – Zoom on the bus and UC current transients during the

transition from the discharge phase to the charge phase.

Fig. 7 - Bode diagrams of the main transfer functions for the control
loop design and evaluation, at the maximum duty-cycle:
the phase and gain margins (mφ and mg)
and the bandwidth (fc) are highlighted
The resulting stability margins have been considered
appropriate for the proposed goal.
In order to evaluate the proper behaviour of the control
system in the time domain, some simulations have been
carried out in PowerSIM.
As shown by the simulation results in Fig. 8, the bus
current is correctly regulated during both discharge and
charge of the UCs. The reference set is 100A for the
discharge phase, whereas it is -100A for the recharging
phase. The UC voltage is shown as well: it decreases
during the discharge for the first 3 seconds; after that, it
increases during the recharge for the last 3 seconds of
simulation. In both the discharge and charge phases,
the UC voltage crosses the fixed bus level, which is
48V. The converter operates at a switching frequency
of 200kHz.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A B2R DC-DC converter for the power management of
a stack of ultracapacitors, in a battery/ultracaps hybrid
storage system for EV applications, has been described
in this paper. The goal is the charge (and discharge) of
a stack of ultracapacitors from (and towards) a 48V
voltage bus. After a preliminary investigation on the
major issues arising from the use of the UCs, a possible
connection has been proposed for the management of a
5kW power level. The total power level is 40kW if 8
stacks of 24 series-connected ultracapacitors and their
resepective B2R power modules are parallelized.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was financially supported by MIUR -
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della
Ricerca (Italian Ministry of Education, University and
Research), by SDESLab (Sustainable Development and
Energy Saving Laboratory) and PERLab (Power
Electronic Research Laboratory) of the University of
Palermo.
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