An autonomous lithium-ion cell balancing system with integrated voltage
monitoring includes a lithium-ion battery having a plurality of cells, a
cell balancing circuit and a cell balancing control circuit. The heart of
the cell balancing circuit is a plurality of gated cell balancing
converters that are connected with the battery cells and a common share
bus. Each gated lithium-ion cell balancing converter receives and input
drive voltage and an input sample voltage and transfers energy from highly
charged lithium-ion cells to the less charged lithium-ion cells, forcing
all cells to have the same energy level. Further, the gated cell balancing
converter provides a telemetry output voltage analog to an input cell
voltage, eliminating the need for a separate cell voltage monitor.
