Battery knowledge · Data, communication and electronics

Kelvin sensing

Measuring voltage through a separate pair of leads that carry no current, so the drop along current-carrying wires and joints is left out. In a BMS, 100 mA of balancing current through 0.5 Ω of sense wire would add a 50 mV error, so designs either give balancing its own leads or pause balancing while measuring.

Also called
four-wire sensing, four-terminal sensing, 4-wire measurement, separate sense and balancing leads

Example

Data, communication and electronics: an example situation

2500 in a log might mean 25.00 °C, 2.5 V or raw counts. Units and scale must accompany the value.

Read Kelvin sensing alongside Cell balancing in this context. Equalising the state of charge of cells in series, since the pack is limited by its emptiest cell on discharge and its fullest on charge. Passive balancing bleeds charge from high cells through resistors; active balancing moves it between cells.

Use in Lemonergy

Separate quantities from encoding and transport.

This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.

References & further reading

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

  1. 3rd generation of the CAN data link layer

    CAN in Automation, CAN Newsletter · 2020

    Topic background · Classical CAN, CAN FD and CAN XL data-link concepts; publication describes the 2020 state.

  2. Getting Started with the BQ76925

    Texas Instruments · 2019

    Topic background · A concrete BMS analog front-end example: cell voltage, current, temperature measurement and MCU integration.