SLUUB65B May 2015 – December 2022
The BQ27542-G1 fuel gauge measures the cell voltage, current, and temperature to determine battery SOC based on outputs from the Impedance Track™ algorithm (see the Theory and Implementation of Impedance Track Battery Fuel-Gauging Algorithm Application Report [SLUA450] for more information). The fuel gauge monitors charge and discharge activity by sensing the voltage across a small-value resistor (5-mΩ to 20-mΩ typical) between the SRN and SRP pins and in series with the cell. By integrating charge passing through the battery, the SOC is accurately adjusted during charge or discharge operation. The total chemical capacity of the battery (Qmax) is found by comparing states of charge before and after applying a discharge that results in charge passed of at least 37% of Design Capacity.
The initial Qmax Cell 0 and Design Capacity are set based on values from the applicable cell manufacturers' data sheet multiplied by the number of parallel cells. When a system load is applied, the impedance of the cell is calculated from the OCV, the measured voltage under load, and the discharge current or power as configured in Load Select. The Load Select parameter can be set to various options such as average discharge current from the last cycle (Avg I Last Run), present average discharge current, 14s-filtered AverageCurrent(), Design Capacity/5 discharge rate, a user-defined discharge rate written to AtRate(), or the value programmed in User Rate-mA. The Load Mode parameter extends this further by supporting the same options with respect to power instead of current.
During battery discharge, the fuel gauge simulates an iterative discharge based on the selected load profile and sums the resulting charge it takes to reach Terminate Voltage, the charge passed since the last OCV measurement, and the starting charge passed that is required to reach the last OCV point to determine FullChargeCapacity(), which is the total capacity that can be extracted from a fully charged battery based on the present load profile and temperature. The predicted capacity left in the battery, or RemainingCapacity(), is simply the summed charge from present SOC to Terminate Voltage as determined by the simulation result. The fuel gauge uses the battery impedance and OCV profiles, Qmax, and present SOC to achieve this accurate prediction.
During battery charge, the fuel gauge coulomb counts up from where the last discharge ended and stores the battery voltage once charge termination is detected (V at Chg Term) to compute the depth-of-discharge (DOD) at end of charge (DOD@EOC). This provides a more accurate 100% SOC reference point for deriving starting charge passed (Qstart) since most systems do not charge the battery to absolutely full. In addition to RemainingCapacity() and FullChargeCapacity(), the fuel gauge also reports uncompensated (that is, <C/20) versions of capacity in NominalAvailableCapacity() and FullAvailableCapacity(), respectively. At relaxation entry (|AverageCurrent()| < Quit Current for Chg Relax Time or Dsg Relax Time, depending on previous state), the fuel gauge waits 60 seconds before beginning to take OCV measurements to check that the battery is in a well-relaxed state (dV/dt < 1 µV/s) and to update the reported SOC every hour (although accumulated charge can result in change to SOC between these updates).