Review of battery management systems for electric vehicles

Battery management system (BMS) is a vital device for electric vehicles (EVs). As suggested by its name, it is to manage the battery operation and ensure the battery is safe to work and optimise its performance to the battery and the associated vehicles. It provides the monitoring and communicates with the other control and display units of a vehicle. The key function of BMS is to protect the battery cells, provide thermal management and determine the state of change (SoC) and state of health (SoH), so that it can be equipped to avoid the operation from hazardous and inefficient modes. The battery cells balancing is required in all BMS to ensure a healthy condition of operation for the battery cells. The chapter describes the structure of BMS and its major functions. Various control methods and circuits used for cell balancing and SoC calculation are shown.