Optimizing battery safety and performance: Hardware implementation and simulation analysis of protective measures, SoC Measurement, and cell balancing in BMS

Singh, Atul Kumar
Boopathy, C. P.

International Journal of Power Electronics and Drive Systems (IJPEDS)
Vol 17, No 1: March 2026

This paper presents a dual-platform validation of a compact battery management system (BMS) combining an Arduino-based hardware prototype and a MATLAB/Simulink model for cross-validation. The hardware implements over-voltage, over-current, and over-temperature protections, state of charge (SOC) estimation using open-circuit voltage (OCV) and coulomb counting (CC), and both passive and active balancing. Experimental results show that SOC accuracy remains within ±2%, active balancing achieves 57% higher energy efficiency and 37% faster convergence than passive balancing, and thermal rise is limited to <5 °C. Limitations include fixed protection thresholds and the absence of physical validation of long-term aging effects. The dual-platform approach allows cross-validation of hardware and simulation, benchmarking SOC estimation methods, and quantifying energy and thermal trade-offs between balancing strategies. This approach offers a low-cost and reproducible validation pathway for EV-oriented BMS design.