2014 IEEE International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

24-25 November 2014, Bali, Indonesia

Development of Wireless Battery Monitoring For

Electric Vehicle

Anif Jamaluddin1, Fengky Adie Perdana2 Agus Purwanto4, Inayati5,

Physics Education Program, Sebelas Maret University Chemical Engineering, Sebelas Maret University
Surakarta, Indonesia Surakarta, Indonesia
1
elhanif@[Link] 4
aguspur@[Link]
2
fengkyadieperdana@[Link] 5
inayati_stmt@[Link]

Agus Supriyanto3, M. Nizam6,

Physics Department, Sebelas Maret University Mechanical Engineering, Sebelas Maret University
Surakarta, Indonesia Surakarta, Indonesia
3
agusf77@[Link] 6
nizamkh@[Link]

Abstract—A Wireless Battery Monitoring System (WBMS) project because arduino has become a popular open-source,
for electric vehicle has been developed for monitoring voltage, single-board microcontroller, and it is gaining acceptance as a
current and temperature of battery. This system consists of quick and low cost prototyping tool for engineering and
hardwares (sensors, a microcontroller, a bluetooth module, an educational projects [8].
Android smartphone) and software. It was designed on a low cost
microcontroller ATMEGA 328 (Arduino UNO). Voltage, current This work presents a wireless battery monitoring which
and temperature data are transfered to microcontroller, then has been developed using a voltage divider (DFR0051),
data of battery is transfered using bluetooth communication to current sensors (ACS712-05B), temperature sensor (LM35),
display. In this research, data of battery monitoring are microcontroller ATMEGA328, bluetooth module. This
displayed on Personal Computer (PC) with LabVIEW monitoring system was able to display the data on PC with
programme and android smartphone. The monitoring system LabVIEW programing and on android smartphone. LabVIEW
was able to show real-time data of voltage, current and is available for all the major platforms and is easily portable
temperature and display data on android smartphone and PC across platforms. It is simple and flexible, since it is a graphical
simultaneously. approach, thus it does not need to write special programs like
other program languages [9]. Android Application has been
Keywords— WBMS; Microcontroller; LabVIEW; Android design to display BMS data based on App Inventor for Android
I. INTRODUCTION (AIA). The AIA is easy for building Android Application [10].
Batteries are widely used on many application as energy The wireless battery monitoring system has been tested for
source on mobile and portable electronic devices. The battery testing Smart UNS LiFePO4 battery. The experimental results
monitoring system (BMS) is one of main component on showed that the developed system was able to perform a real
electric vehicle. It is used for monitoring voltage, current and time monitoring on voltage, current and temperature of
temperature of battery during charging or discharging process battery.
[1]. There are many researches remote monitoring systems.
The wireless technology based on based on wireless II. DESIGN
networking technology (WiFi) has been developed for The developed wireless battery monitoring system is
monitoring battery on electric vehicle [2-3]. Other research consisted some parts and software, i.e., sensors,
about wireless technology based on bluetooth communication microcontroller ATMEGA 328 (Arduino Uno), bluetooth
has been done and applied for battery management system [4]. module, PC, Android Smartphone, LabVIEW Programing and
Bluetooth communication is a short-range wireless technology App Inventor. Fig 1 shows experimental layout of WBMS for
that operates in the 2.4 GHz band [5]. battery testing.
The research on utilizing microprocessor for battery
monitoring or management system have been conducted using
microcontroller AT89S52 [1], AVR [6], ATMEGA 128
Microcontroller [7], ATMEGA 328 (Arduino Uno platform)
[8] data acquisition circuit to collect data. The microcontroller
ATMEGA 328 (Arduino plat form) has been selected for this

978-1-4799-8478-7 / 14 / $ 31,00 © 2014 IEEE

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 Start

Hardware Preparation

Embeded Program with Arduino IDE

Fig. 1. Layout of Wireless Battery Monitoring System

A. Sensor Design LabVIEW for WBMS

A voltage devider module (DFR0051) was selected as
voltage sensor. The DF-Robot voltage devider module is built
based on resistor devider principle. The DFR0051 can detect Callibration
the supply voltage up to 25 V [8]. Current Sensor (ACS712- System
05B) operates based on the principle of Hall-Effect. It provides
output sensitivity of 185mV/A (at +5V power supply), and can
measure current up to ±5A [8].
Data Acquisition
The internal and ambient temperature of the battery plays
an important role for determining the battery performance as it
can change dramatically with temperature. In this research, the
temperature sensor LM 35, an analog temperature sensor, was Design Android Application For
WBMS
used for the WBMS. It is poweredby a 5V supply. Outputs of
this analog-voltage signal was proportional to its temperature.
The output signal was measured with one of the
microcontroller’s built in A–D converters, and a calibration Data Acquisition
formula provided by the manufacturer was used to convert the
voltage signal to temperature, with an accuracy of ±0.5 ◦C [11].
B. Microcontroller End
Microcontroller ATMEGA 328 (Arduino UNO) was used
to develop this system. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of Fig. 2. Process design of Wireless Battery Monitoring System
which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16
MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an
ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed
to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer III. SOFTWARE PREPARATION
with a USB cable or power it using an adapter (AC-DC The WBMS was developed using 3 software platforms, i.e.,
converter) or battery to get started [8]. Arduino Integrated Development for Environtmental (IDE),
LabVIEW and App Inventor for Android (AIA). Arduino IDE
C. Bluetooth Module was used as embeded program into microcontroller. The
Bluetooth network is one of the most important player on displaying data acquisition on PC worked on LabVIEW
wireless communication. It has a short-range wireless platform. In addition, AIA was used to develop android
technology that operates in the 2.4GHz band, low cost and low application.
power technology . A Bluetooth module HC-06 was chosen for
this experiment. It can be connected to 3.3 to 5 VDC power A. Arduino IDE
supply and with TX and RX for controling. The arduino's integrated development environment (IDE) is
a cross-platform application written in Java language. It is
The flowchart of process design wireless battery derived from the IDE for the processing programming
monitoring system is shows on fig 2. language and the wiring projects. Arduino programs are written
in C or C++ [8]. The flowchart of programming Arduino IDE
is shown on fig 3.a.
B. LabVIEW
The LabVIEW software is used as the integrating platform
for acquiring, processing and transmitting the physiological
data since it is an excellent graphical programming
environment to develop sophisticated measurement, test, and

148
control systems using intuitive graphical icons and wires that
resemble a flowchart. Fig 3.b shows flowchart of programming
for displaying data acquisition.

Start
Start

Port Bluetooth
Initialize Port
initialize
(sensor)

Sensor read
voltage, current, Recieve Data Fig. 5. App inventor block diagram
temperature

IV. IMPLEMENTATION
Calculating
Analog to Digital
Convertor (ADC)
Voltage, Current The wireless battery monitoring system has been developed
and Temperature using microcontroler ATMEGA328 with bluetooth
communication. The system has been tested for monitoring
Send Data via
Bluetooth
voltage, current and temperature of a single cell Smart UNS
Display Data LiFePO4 battery. Experimental data collected by the battery
monitoring system were shown both on PC with LabVIEW and
End Android App for Smartphone.
End
A. Personal Computer Display
a. b. The user friendly display for PC has been developed based
on LabVIEW. There were start and stop button for starting and
Fig. 3. a. Flowchart Arduino IDE b. Flowchart display of wireless battery terminating the programme. The system gave alert to user if the
monitoring system (PC and Arduino smartphone). voltage battery reached 2.5 volt, the low operating voltage of
Smart UNS LiFePO4 battery. Fig 6 shows the WBMS display.
C. App Inventor for Android (AIA)
AIA is Developed by MIT Media Lab for education
purposes, App Inventor is a Scratch-based visual programming
language. Forthermore, App Inventor is a web interface
development environment such that programming is made in a
visual rather than a conventional way, when developing
Android apps, and then can be uploaded to a smart phone
directly[10]. Fig 3.b shows a flowchart for displaying WBMS
on android smartphone. The design of android application with
App inventor consisted of two parts (component diagram and
block diagram). Component diagram was used for design
layout to display on android smart phone. A block diagram was
used for design programming of android. Fig 4 and 5 show
App Inventor component and block diagram
Fig. 6. PC Display Wireless Battery Monitoring System

During experiments, the system searched, detected and

selected serial port of bluetooth automatically. The program
displayed graph of voltage, current and recorded data voltage,
current and temperature in tabulated form. The historical data
could be transferred to other format (.xls, .dat, etc.) just with
doing right click of table or chart. Fig 7 and 8 show the result
of experimental data for discharging monitoring of LiFePO4
battery after exporting data to excel file. Data was processed
using origin pro 7.0 program and showed on fig 7 and fig 8.

Fig. 4. App inventor component diagram

149
 10 3,6
Voltage
Current 3,4

8 3,2

3,0
Current (Ampere)

6 2,8

Voltage (Volt)
2,6

2,4
4
2,2

2,0
2
1,8

1,6
0
0 200 400 600 800

Time ( x 5 Second)

Fig. 7. Voltage and current of discharging battery

Based on fig 7, it show voltage and current characteristic of

battery Smart UNS LiFePO4 for Electric Vehicle on
discharging process. In this research, constant current method
is used for discharging about 1.8 ampere.
Fig 8. shows temperature characteristic around the battery
Smart UNS LiFePO4. It indicates that temperature around of
battery is relative stable about 300 C. Fig. 9. Screen shoot of WBS using android Application

V. RESULT
Temperature
50 In general implementation, a wireless battery monitoring
system is simple and user friendly application to monitor
45 voltage, current and temperature of battery during charging and
discharging process. WBMS can be applied on PC, as well as
40 on Android smartphone.
Temperature (C)

35 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The work is supported by LPDP afirmation program for
30
National Electric Vehicle (MOLINA) Research and
25
Development. (PRJ-933/LPDP/2014, August 17, 2014)

20
0 200 400 600 800
Time (x 5 Second)
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