Battery Management System for Solar Powered Vehicles applied to Técnico Solar Boat prototype

Sebastião Maria Antelo de Holbeche Beirão

Key information

Authors:

Sebastião Maria Antelo de Holbeche Beirão (Sebastião Maria Antelo de Holbeche Beirão)

Supervisors:

Rui Manuel Rodrigues Rocha (Rui Manuel Rodrigues Rocha); Carlos Manuel Ribeiro Almeida (Carlos Manuel Ribeiro Almeida)

Published in

11/25/2021

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the design, implementation and testing of a Battery Management System (BMS) for the Técnico Solar Boat (TSB) solar-powered boats. Since 2015 TSB, a student's project from Instituto Superior Técnico develops manned competition boats powered exclusively by green energies. The project started with solar-powered boats, but nowadays, hydrogen-powered boats are also developed. TSB’s boats are designed to participate in international competitions that take place in Portugal, The Netherlands and Monaco. The boat on which this BMS will be used has a 44.4 V Lithium-Ion Polymer battery, six square meters of monocrystalline solar cells and a drive train composed by two Brushless Direct Current motors with 5 and 10 kW each. The BMS is a centralized system that monitors the battery pack and sends the acquired information to the boat's Controller Area Network bus as well as to a Graphical User Interface, provided a computer is plugged-in. Besides monitoring the battery, the BMS is also responsible for controlling the different relays within the battery box as well as deciding whether the battery is safe and consequently whether the boat can be used or not. A set of requirements imposed by the competition’s regulations and others imposed by the team have to be met. Given the characteristics of the vessel in which the system will be implemented, the purposed BMS should be as reliable as possible so that the battery safety is never compromised. The system should also be lightweight and cost less than commercially available solutions.