Battery impedance spectroscopy using bidirectional grid connected converter

Battery impedance can provide valuable insight into the condition of the battery. Commercially available impedance measurement instruments are expensive. Hence their direct use in a battery management system is not justifiable. In this work, a 3-kW bi-directional converter for charging and discharging a battery bank has been implemented with the capability of impedance measurement. The converter is grid connected and controlled to operate at unity power factor. Additional requirements on filter design and control structure of battery converter for impedance measurement are discussed. An algorithm has been developed to measure impedance by frequency sweep, avoiding transients. The measured impedance has been compared to that from a commercially available impedance measurement equipment and is shown to have a good match.