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Battery cell: Measuring discharge and charge for

parameters estimation
Author(s): rcdd7

1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................2
2. Definition and acronyms................................................................................................................2
3. Equipment required.......................................................................................................................2
4. Test procedure..............................................................................................................................2
4.1. Constraints during the test....................................................................................................2
4.2. Safety instructions.................................................................................................................2
4.3. Battery cell specifications......................................................................................................3
4.4. Objectives and main outline of the measurement.................................................................3
4.5. List of measurements............................................................................................................4
5. Measurements...............................................................................................................................5
5.1. CC tests at ambient temperature..........................................................................................5
5.1.1. Test 1: Constant discharge at 2C, ambient temperature...............................................5
5.1.2. Test 2: Constant discharge at C, ambient temperature.................................................5
5.1.3. Test 3: Constant discharge at C/2, ambient temperature..............................................5
5.1.4. Test 4: Constant discharge at C/5, ambient temperature..............................................6
5.2. Pulse tests at ambient temperature......................................................................................6
5.2.1. Test 5: PDT at ambient temperature.............................................................................6
5.2.2. Test 6: Pulse cyclic charging...........................................................................................6
5.3. CC tests at low temperature..................................................................................................7
6. Results...........................................................................................................................................7
6.1. Battery Capacity.....................................................................................................................7
6.2. Parameters from the PDT at ambient temperature...............................................................7
6.3. Discharge rate capability at low temperature.......................................................................8
6.4. OPALIS parameters modelling...............................................................................................8
7. References...................................................................................................................................11

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1. Introduction
This document outlines a methodology for estimating battery parameters based on the Thevenin
model as described in [1]. The purpose of this procedure is to facilitate the dynamic power
budgeting and battery status simulation within the OPALIS software. OPALIS can be downloaded at:

https://www.connectbycnes.fr/en/opalis

2. Definition and acronyms

GSE Ground Support Equipment

PSU Power Supply Unit

SoC State of Charge

DOD Depth of Discharge

CC Constant Current

CV Constant Voltage

PDT Pulse Discharging Test

3. Equipment required
The material/equipment required is as follows:

Materials required:

- Battery cell to be measured.

- Power Supply Unit which can supply a voltage range from 3V to 5V at a current limit set.
- Electronic load.
- Multimeter with thermocouple.
- Oscilloscope.

4. Test procedure
4.1. Constraints during the test
Charging of the battery to be done <0.5C to keep battery capacity intact and minimize temperature
variations.

4.2. Safety instructions

Temperature of the battery cell has to be monitored to avoid thermal runaway during charging and
discharging

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4.3. Battery cell specifications

MP 144350 xlr Rechargeable Li-ion cell: 3.65 V high energy Li-ion cell. It is stated to be a 3.65 V high
energy Li-ion cell with robust performance and cycle life

Electrical characteristics
Typical capacity (at C/5 rate, +25°C, 2.5V cut-off) (1) 2.6 Ah
Nominal voltage 3.65 V
Nominal energy 9.4 Wh
Recommended maximum discharge current (2) Continuous 5.0 A (~2C rate)
Pulses 10.0 A (~4C rate)
(1) Can vary depending on temperature and discharge rate
(2) Can vary depending on temperatures. Consult Saft

Table 1. Electrical characteristiscs of the MP 144350 xlr.

Operating conditions
Typical cut-off voltage 2.5V
Charging method Constant current / Constant voltage
Charging voltage 4.2 ± 0.05 V
Maximum continuous charge current (4) 2.6 A (1C rate)
Operating temperatures (4) Charge -30°C to +60°C
Discharge -35°C to +60°C
Storage & transportation temperatures (4) Recommended +10°C to +30°C
Allowable -40°C to +60°C
(4) For optimised operation below 0°C consult Saft

Table 2. Operating conditions of the MP 1445350 xlr.

4.4. Objectives and main outline of the measurement

The software OPALIS uses a modification of the Thevenin model for modelling the charge and
discharge of the batteries. This model, described in [1] is defined by the following equations:

{V ( SoC )=E ( SoC ) −I ∙ R 0 ( SoC )−i R 1 ∙ R 1(SoC)

I =i R 1+i C 1

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the Thevenin model.

The objective is to estimate four parameters: E, R0, R1, C1, all four of them depend on the State of
Charge (SoC).

The Pulse Discharging Test (PDT) is done as follows:

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1. Charge the battery cell with the constant current/constant voltage method. Charge
terminated when current is <3% of rated current (78mA)
2. Assure the cell is fully charged, measure the voltage ( E0 ).
3. Let the cell have a rest for a period.
4. Remove charge in the battery by pulses, the removed charge can be calculated with:
∆ Q=t p ∙ I p /3600 .
5. At the end of each pulse, the cell has to be left open circuit and stay at rest.
6. At the end of the rest period, another pulse current is applied.
7. Procedure has to be repeated until the cut-off voltage is reached.

The parameters for the PDT are as in the following table:

Parameter Value
Pulse current ( I p) 2.5 A
Pulse duration (t p) 375 s
Removed charge per pulse (∆ Q ) 0.26 Ah
Removed charge p.p. / nominal Capacity (∆ Q /Q n) ~10%
Waiting time between pulses (t w) 720 s
Total period of discharge pulse (t p+ t w) 1095 s
Table 3. PDT parameters.

4.5. List of measurements

Different measurements will be done:

a) Measurement of discharge at Constant Current (CC) to get the battery capacity. The battery
is measured at constant discharge rates of: C/5, C/2, C and 2C at ambient temperature.
b) PDT at ambient temperature using the PDT parameters in Table 3.
c) Cyclic charging at ambient temperature.
d) Measurement of discharge at constant current to get the battery capacity. The battery is
measured at constant discharge rates of: C/5, C/2, C and 2C at low temperatures.
e) PDT at low temperatures, with parameters like in Table 3.

To calculate the values of the parameters in the Thevenin model, the temporal response of the
battery is used as in Figure 2, The equations are described below [1].

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Figure 2. Current pulse and battery terminal voltage response.

R0 =∆ V 0 / I p

∆V ∞
R 1= −R 0
Ip
∆ t∞
C1≅
5 R1
In the case of cyclic charging the equations are similar, the main difference is that a different
transient resistance for charging ( R2) will apply, this can be calculated in a similar way than in the
previous case:

∆V ∞
R 2= −R 0
Ip

5. Measurements
5.1. CC tests at ambient temperature
5.1.1. Test 1: Constant discharge at 2C, ambient temperature
Battery charged with the PSU using a charging voltage of 4.2V and current of C/3 (0.86A). Charge
terminated when current is <3% of rated current (78mA).

Charging
Temperature at start of charging: 23.2°C
Temperature at end of charge: 25.5°C
Charging duration: ~3h.

Discharging at 2C
Cut-off voltage: 2.5V
Temperature at start: 26°C

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Temperature at end: 45.4°C

Duration of the test: 26m24s

5.1.2. Test 2: Constant discharge at C, ambient temperature

Charging at C/2
Temperature at start of charging: 29°C
Temperature at end of charge: 26.6°C
Charging duration: ~2.5h.

Discharging at C
Temperature at start: 23.9°C
Temperature at end: 33.3°C
Duration of the test: 57m21s

5.1.3. Test 3: Constant discharge at C/2, ambient temperature

Charging at C/2
Temperature at start of charging: 26°C
Temperature at end of charge: 25.9°C
Charging duration: ~3h.

Discharging at C/2
Temperature at start: 23.9°C
Temperature at end: 27°C
Duration of the test: 1h34m

5.1.4. Test 4: Constant discharge at C/5, ambient temperature

Charging at C/2
Temperature at start of charging: 27.8°C
Temperature at end of charge: 31°C
Charging duration: ~3h.

Discharging at C/5
Temperature at start: 24.5°C
Temperature at end: 24.7°C
Duration of the test: 4h54m

5.2. Pulse tests at ambient temperature

5.2.1. Test 5: PDT at ambient temperature
The parameters used are found in Table 3.

Temperature at start: 24.9°C

Temperature at end: °C
Duration of the test: ~2h 50m

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4.3
4.1
3.9
3.7
3.5
3.3
3.1
2.9
2.7
2.5

Figure 3. Voltage during the PDT at ambient temperature.

A total number of 9 pulses were completed, the last pulse only lasted 243 seconds before reaching
the cutoff voltage.

5.2.2. Test 6: Pulse cyclic charging

In a similar way, a cyclic charging with pulses was performed, only a few pulses were performed, as
that is enough to estimate the parameter R2 for the battery modeling.

3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
3

Figure 4. Cyclic charging voltage.

5.3. CC tests at low temperature

6. Results
6.1. Battery Capacity
The battery capacity is estimated using the Coulomb Counting method, as:
N
Q=∑ I ∙ ∆ T s
i=1

Where I is the battery current and ∆ T s is the sampling period.

The following table presents the battery capacity for the different procedures:

Discharge rate Capacity

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Discharge 2C, ambient temperature 2.287 Ah

Discharge C, ambient temperature 2.485 Ah
Discharge C/2, ambient temperature 2.522 Ah
Discharge C/5, ambient temperature 2.545 Ah
PDT @2.5A, ambient temperature 2.5125 Ah
Table 4. Estimated battery capacity in each discharging test.

6.2. Parameters from the PDT at ambient temperature

Using the procedure and the equations described in section List of measurements4.5, the
parameters have the values listed in Table 5.
DOD 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
E0 [V] 4.17 4.04 3.94 3.84 3.74 3.67 3.63 3.59 3.51 3.44
R0 [mΩ] 74.5 74.7 74.2 74.1 74.1 73.3 74.4 74.3 76.8 84
R1 [mΩ] 21.1 31.9 38.2 32.3 35.5 45.2 49.8 43.8 51.9 59.9
C1 [kF] 9.4 7.6 6.4 7.0 6.6 7.2 7.2 7.4 8.2 -
Table 5. Thevenin discharge model parameters.

In the same manner, during the pulse charging, the other parameter can be estimated:

R2 [mΩ] 18.9 20.5 17.9 23.4 17.7

Table 6. Thevenin charge model parameter.

6.3. Discharge rate capability at low temperature

6.4. OPALIS parameters modelling

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Figure 5. Thevenin model used in the OPALIS simulation tool.

The OPALIS software [2] employs the Thevenin model to simulate battery behavior over time in
response to various charging and discharging loads. Utilizing the findings presented in section 6,
users can input the measurement parameters into OPALIS, which utilizes the following equations:
2 3 4
Ebat =e bat 0+ e bat1 ∙ SoC+ e bat2 ∙ SoC + e bat3 ∙ SoC + e bat 4 ∙ SoC
rsint 3∗(Ebat −rsint 4 )
R sint=r sint 0+ r sint 1 ∙ E bat +r sint 2 ∙ exp
2 3 4
RtransD =d∫ 0 +d∫ 1 ∙ SoC +d∫ 2 ∙ SoC + d∫ 3 ∙ SoC +d∫ 4 ∙ SoC

Rtrans c =d∫ ch

C trans=tau

In the previous measurements, the variables have slightly different names:

Ebat =E0

R sint=R 0

RtransD =R 1

RtransC =R 2

C trans=C 1

The parameters in green depend on the type of accumulators used, they have to be filled in the
simulation parameters.

The parameters ebat[0..4], rsint[0..4], dint[0..4], dintch and tau can be determined by measurement
performed on this battery cell. The coefficients are deducted from the extrapolation of these curves.

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Figure 6. Measured parameters and curve reconstruction using OPALIS parameters. Top:.Open Circuit Voltage (E0), middle:
Internal resistance (R0), bottom: polarization resistance (R1).

The ebat0…ebat4 and dint0…dint5 coefficients are estimated with a polynomial fit function.
However, the rsint0…rsint4 parameters don’t use a similar equation and the extrapolation is difficult
in this case, therefore, the values are taken from another preexisting parameter in Opalis and only
slightly modified to try to fit the measured parameters. Furthermore, the parameters of the charge
polarization resistance and the capacitance don’t have a polynomial model in Opalis, therefore, the
remaining coefficients (dintch & tau) are only the average of the estimations from the
measurements.

The coefficients for the plots shown in Figure 6 are summarized in the next table:

Open Circuit Voltage Internal resistance Discharge polarization

resistance
ebat0 (V) 3.2884 rsint0 (Ω) 0.0525 dint0 (Ω) 0.0646
ebat1 (V) 1.8128 rsint1 (1/A) 0.005 dint1 (Ω) -0.0573

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ebat2 (V) -4.2054 rsint2 (Ω) 0.004 dint2 (Ω) -0.0294

ebat3 (V) 5.3061 rsint3 (1/V) -2 dint3 (Ω) 0.1605
ebat4 (V) -2.0300 rsint4 (V) 3.6 dint4 (Ω) -0.1161
Other parameters dint5 (Ω) 0
dintch (Ω) 0.01968 tau (F) 7240
Table 7. Estimated OPALIS coefficients for the battery cell.

The other parameters needed for OPALIS initialization regarding the battery model are listed
hereafter:

- capabatnom: nominal capacity of the battery, left as in the datasheet

- capabat and ebateffective: effective capacity and effective energy of the battery (which consider
degradation and depend on the lifetime, the number of cycle and the cycled DOD), not considered
and left as in the datasheet.

7. References
[1] Campagna, N., Castiglia, V., Miceli, R., Mastromauro, R. A., Spataro, C., Trapanese, M., & Viola, F.
(2020). Battery models for battery powered applications: A comparative study. Energies, 13(16),
4085.

[2] TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION OF OPALIS SOFTWARE, Honorine Boirard & Christian Elisabelar,
Direction des Systemes orbitaux, Service alimentation bord & equipments electriques. CNES. 2019

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Annex
Discharge capabilities in the MP 144350 xlr datasheet.

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