Stephen R. Duncan

Adrien M. Bizeray, Jin-Ho Kim, Stephen R. Duncan et al.

This paper investigates the identifiability and estimation of the parameters of the single particle model (SPM) for lithium-ion battery simulation. Identifiability is addressed both in principle and in practice. The approach begins by grouping parameters and partially non-dimensionalising the SPM to determine the maximum expected degrees of freedom in the problem. We discover that, excluding open circuit voltage, there are only six independent parameters. We then examine the structural identifiability by considering whether the transfer function of the linearised SPM is unique. It is found that the model is unique provided that the electrode open circuit voltage functions have a known non-zero gradient, the parameters are ordered, and the electrode kinetics are lumped into a single charge transfer resistance parameter. We then demonstrate the practical estimation of model parameters from measured frequency-domain experimental electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) data, and show additionally that the parametrised model provides good predictive capabilities in the time domain, exhibiting a maximum voltage error of 20 mV between model and experiment over a 10 minute dynamic discharge.

Shi Zhao, Stephen R. Duncan, David A. Howey

This paper investigates the observability of one of the most commonly used equivalent circuit models (ECMs) for lithium-ion batteries and presents a method to estimate the state of charge (SOC) in the presence of sensor biases, highlighting the importance of observability analysis for choosing appropriate state estimation algorithms. Using a differential geometric approach, necessary and sufficient conditions for the nonlinear ECM to be observable are derived and are shown to be different from the conditions for the observability of the linearised model. It is then demonstrated that biases in the measurements, due to sensor ageing or calibration errors, can be estimated by applying a nonlinear Kalman filter to an augmented model where the biases are incorporated into the state vector. Experiments are carried out on a lithium-ion pouch cell and three types of nonlinear filters, the first-order extended Kalman filter (EKF), the second-order EKF and the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) are applied using experimental data. The different performances of the filters are explained from the point of view of observability.

Ross Drummond, Shi Zhao, David A. Howey et al.

This paper is concerned with the synthesis of RC electrical circuits from physics-based supercapacitor models describing conservation and diffusion relationships. The proposed synthesis procedure uses model discretisation, linearisation, balanced model order reduction and passive network synthesis to form the circuits. Circuits with different topologies are synthesized from several physical models. This work will give greater understanding to the physical interpretation of electrical circuits and will enable the development of more generalised circuits, since the synthesized impedance functions are generated by considering the physics, not from experimental fitting which may ignore certain dynamics.

Ross Drummond, Mathew C. Turner, Stephen R. Duncan

In the wake of the explosive growth in smartphones and cyberphysical systems, there has been an accelerating shift in how data is generated away from centralised data towards on-device generated data. In response, machine learning algorithms are being adapted to run locally on board, potentially hardware limited, devices to improve user privacy, reduce latency and be more energy efficient. However, our understanding of how these device orientated algorithms behave and should be trained is still fairly limited. To address this issue, a method to automatically synthesize reduced-order neural networks (having fewer neurons) approximating the input/output mapping of a larger one is introduced. The reduced-order neural network's weights and biases are generated from a convex semi-definite programme that minimises the worst-case approximation error with respect to the larger network. Worst-case bounds for this approximation error are obtained and the approach can be applied to a wide variety of neural networks architectures. What differentiates the proposed approach to existing methods for generating small neural networks, e.g. pruning, is the inclusion of the worst-case approximation error directly within the training cost function, which should add robustness. Numerical examples highlight the potential of the proposed approach. The overriding goal of this paper is to generalise recent results in the robustness analysis of neural networks to a robust synthesis problem for their weights and biases.

Jiaqi Li, Ross Drummond, Stephen R. Duncan

With the rise of smartphones and the internet-of-things, data is increasingly getting generated at the edge on local, personal devices. For privacy, latency and energy saving reasons, this shift is causing machine learning algorithms to move towards decentralisation with the data and algorithms stored, and even trained, locally on devices. The device hardware becomes the main bottleneck for model capability in this set-up, creating a need for slimmed down, more efficient neural networks. Neural network pruning and quantisation are two methods that have been developed for this, with both approaches demonstrating impressive results in reducing the computational cost without sacrificing significantly on model performance. However, the understanding behind these reduction methods remains underdeveloped. To address this issue, a semi-definite program is introduced to bound the worst-case error caused by pruning or quantising a neural network. The method can be applied to many neural network structures and nonlinear activation functions with the bounds holding robustly for all inputs in specified sets. It is hoped that the computed bounds will provide certainty to the performance of these algorithms when deployed on safety-critical systems.

Ross Drummond, David A. Howey, Stephen R. Duncan

This work investigates two physics-based models that simulate the non-linear partial differential algebraic equations describing an electric double layer supercapacitor. In one model the linear dependence between electrolyte concentration and conductivity is accounted for, while in the other model it is not. A spectral element method is used to discretise the model equations and it is found that the error convergence rate with respect to the number of elements is faster compared to a finite difference method. The increased accuracy of the spectral element approach means that, for a similar level of solution accuracy, the model simulation computing time is approximately 50% of that of the finite difference method. This suggests that the spectral element model could be used for control and state estimation purposes. For a typical supercapacitor charging profile, the numerical solutions from both models closely match experimental voltage and current data. However, when the electrolyte is dilute or where there is a long charging time, a noticeable difference between the numerical solutions of the two models is observed. Electrical impedance spectroscopy simulations show that the capacitance of the two models rapidly decreases when the frequency of the perturbation current exceeds an upper threshold.