Nonlinear observer designs for state-of-charge estimation of Lithium-ion batteries

State-of-Charge (SOC) information is very crucial for the control, diagnostics and monitoring of Li-ion cells/batteries. Compared to conventional data-driven or equivalent circuit models often employed in battery management systems, electrochemical battery models have the potential to give physically accurate the SOC information by tracking the Li-ion concentration in each electrode. In this paper, two nonlinear observer designs are presented to estimate Li-ion battery State-of-Charge based on reductions of an electrochemical model. The first observer design uses a constant gain Luenberger structure whereas the second one improves it by weighing the gain with the output Jacobian. For both observer designs, Lyapunov's direct method is applied and the design problems are converted to solving LMIs. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of both observer designs.