Research

We are developing battery monitoring and control software to improve the capacity, safety, and charge rate of electric vehicle batteries (of various chemistries). Conventional methods for preventing premature aging and failures in electric vehicle batteries involve expensive and heavy overdesign of the battery and tend to result in inefficient use of available battery capacity. The objective is to increase usable capacity and enhance charging rates by improving the ability to estimate battery health in real-time, to predict and manage the impact of charge and discharge cycles on battery health, and to minimize battery degradation. 

Substantial engineering applications have distributed-parameter nature, such as battery electrochemistry, electric vehicles, thermodynamics, structures, and smart grids. Careful integration of partial differential equation (PDE) model-based algorithms, which capture such spatial-temporal dynamics with high fidelity and high accuracy, via an intelligent control and estimation strategy ultimately enhances system efficiency and stability. Unfortunately, these spatial-temporal dynamics often pose restrictive non-destructive real-time measurements through only system boundaries. Moreover, PDE models require excessive computational power for numerical implementation, currently prohibiting their real-time applicability.

Ultimately, our goal is to design algorithms with mathematical assurance to monitor and detect failures, and improve safety of energy storage systems by active control, based on high fidelity infinite-dimensional systems.

Among the potential next-generation battery chemistries, All-Solid-State Batteries utilizing a metallic lithium anode offers a significant increase in specific energy as well as better thermal stability at both cell and pack levels. Many practical issues related to uncontrollable lithium dendrite growth and poor cycling efficiency still linger but are being addressed and mitigated. Our research concerns modeling, control, and experimentation of next-generation solid state batteries by fusing knowledge of control theory and energy material engineering.