A Critical Look at Coulomb Counting Towards Improving the Kalman Filter Based State of Charge Tracking Algorithms in Rechargeable Batteries

In this paper, we consider the problem of state of charge estimation for rechargeable batteries. Coulomb counting is one of the traditional approaches to state of charge estimation and it is considered reliable as long as the battery capacity and initial state of charge are known. However, the Coulomb counting method is susceptible to errors from several sources and the extent of these errors are not studied in the literature. In this paper, we formally derive and quantify the state of charge estimation error during Coulomb counting due to the following four types of error sources: (i) current measurement error; (ii) current integration approximation error; (iii) battery capacity uncertainty; and (iv) the timing oscillator error/drift. It is shown that the resulting state of charge error can either be of the time-cumulative or of state-of-charge-proportional type. Time-cumulative errors increase with time and has the potential to completely invalidate the state of charge estimation in the long run. State-of-charge-proportional errors increase with the accumulated state of charge and reach its worst value within one charge/discharge cycle. Simulation analyses are presented to demonstrate the extent of these errors under several realistic scenarios and the paper discusses approaches to reduce the time-cumulative and state of charge-proportional errors.