Health Prognosis for Electric Vehicle Battery Packs: A Data-Driven Approach

Accurate, reliable, and robust prognosis of the state of health (SOH) and remaining useful life (RUL) plays a significant role in battery pack management for electric vehicles. However, there still exist challenges in computational cost, storage requirement, health indicators extraction, and algorithm design. This paper proposes a novel dual Gaussian process regression model for the SOH and RUL prognosis of battery packs. The multi-stage constant current charging method is used for aging tests. Health indicators are extracted from partial charging curves, in which capacity loss, resistance increase, and inconsistency variation are examined. A dual Gaussian process regression model is designed to predict SOH over the entire cycle life and RUL near the end of life. Experimental results show that the predictions of SOH and RUL are accurate, reliable, and robust. The maximum absolute errors and root mean square errors of SOH predictions are less than 1.3% and 0.5%, respectively, and the maximum absolute errors and root mean square errors of RUL predictions are 2 cycles and 1 cycle, respectively. The computation time for the entire training and testing process is less than 5 seconds. This article shows the prospect of health prognosis using multiple health indicators in automotive applications.