Hysteresis Modeling for Model-Based Condition
Monitoring of Lithium-Ion Batteries
Taesic Kim
Power and Energy Systems Laboratory
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0511 USA
taesickim@huskers.unl.edu
Abstract—A real-time battery model capable of accurately
predicting the battery hysteresis effect is critical for a model-
based battery conditional monitoring algorithm in advanced
battery management systems. Battery condition monitoring
involves tracking changes in physical parameters and
operational states such as state of charge (SOC) and state of
health (SOH) to ensure the optimal operation and safety of a
battery system. This paper investigates and models the
hysteresis behavior of lithium-ion battery cells and
incorporates the hysteresis model in the real-time battery
model to improve the accuracy of the SOC estimation in both
charge and discharge modes over the entire operating SOC
range and environmental temperature range of the cells. This
also leads to accurate maximum capacity estimation to
determine the SOH of the battery cells. In addition, a method
for extracting the hysteresis model parameters is proposed.
Experimental results for a cylindrical lithium-ion cell are
provided to validate the proposed model and method.
Keywords—Battery model; condition monitoring; hysteresis
model; lithium-ion battery; parameter estimation; real time
I. INTRODUCTION
Lithium-ion batteries have been widely used in many
battery-powered systems owing to the high energy and
power densities and long cycle life [1]. While viewed as a
promising technology, lithium-ion batteries still have
significant limitations in reliability and performance
degradation due to low thermal stability and aging process.
To overcome these limitations, it is important to include the
condition monitoring function in a battery management
system (BMS). A key function of the condition monitoring
is to estimate the states and parameters, such as the state of
charge (SOC), state of health (SOH), instantaneous
available power (i.e., state of power (SOP)), internal
impedance, maximum capacity, etc., which reflect the
operating and health conditions of the battery cells during
operation [2]. Since the values of these states and
parameters cannot be directly measured by using sensors,
model-based condition monitoring methods are commonly
This work was supported in part by the U.S. National Science
Foundation under grant IIP-1414393.
978-1-4673-7151-3/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Wei Qiao and Liayn Qu
Power and Energy Systems Laboratory
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0511 USA
wqiao3@unl.edu; lqu2@unl.edu
used to obtain their values using the measurable states of the
battery cells, such as voltage, current, and surface
temperature. Hence, an accurate battery model is crucial for
the development of a model-based condition monitoring
algorithm. Moreover, a balance between the accuracy and
the complexity of the battery model should be considered
for real-time condition monitoring of batteries.
The model-based methods basically utilize state-space
electrochemical models [3] or electrical circuit models [4] to
design an observer for real-time SOC and/or SOH
estimation. Although the electrochemical models are
accurate, their implementations are difficult due to the high
complexity and intensive computation requirement.
Therefore, electrical circuit models are more suitable for
real-time embedded system applications.
The hysteresis effect [5] is a fundamental phenomenon
of batteries, which shows a difference in the equilibrium
open-circuit voltage (OCV) between the charge and
discharge processes of the batteries. The hysteresis effect is
mainly caused by the mechanical stress, entropic effect, and
microscopic distortion in the active materials during the
lithium insertion and extraction process, which lead to a
phase separation and slow dynamics of the battery cells. The
difference in the equilibrium OCV depends on the history of
the battery usage, environmental temperature, and properties
of the active materials in the battery. For some lithium-ion
batteries (e.g., LiFePo4) having a relatively strong
hysteresis effect, the SOC estimation accuracy will
deteriorate if the battery model does not incorporate the
hysteresis effect. Furthermore, since the battery hysteresis
effect depends on the environmental temperature, it is
necessary to include a temperature-dependent hysteresis
model if the battery system is exposed to a varying
temperature environment. Recently, the authors developed a
real-time battery model comprising a first-order resistor-
capacitor (RC) electrical circuit with a hysteresis model [6],
which, however, did not provide a detailed analysis on the
5068
hysteresis modeling.
This paper extends the work of [6] to further investigate
and model the hysteresis effect in the real-time battery
model for various charge and discharge currents and the
entire operating SOC and temperature ranges of a battery
cell. This paper also proposes a method to extract the
optimal temperature-dependent parameters for the hysteresis
model. A condition monitoring algorithm is applied to
validate the hysteresis model. The algorithm includes a
recursive least square (RLS)-based online impedance
estimation and an adaptive discrete-time sliding-mode
observer (ADSMO) for SOC estimation [4]. The use of
temperature-dependent hysteresis parameters improves the
SOC estimation in both charge and discharge modes over
the anticipated full operating SOC and temperatures ranges.
This also leads to accurate maximum capacity estimation to
determine the SOH of the cell [7]. The proposed method is
implemented in MATLAB/Simulink and validated by
experimental results for a cylindrical lithium-ion battery cell.
II. REAL-TIME BATTERY MODEL
An accurate battery model is important to obtain a
precise estimation of the states and parameters for a battery
cell. This paper uses the real-time battery model proposed
by the authors [6] comprising a first-order RC circuit with a
hysteresis model, as shown in Fig. 1, which provides a good
balance between model accuracy and complexity [8].
In Fig 1, the VOC (i.e., the instantaneous OCV) includes
two parts. The first part, denoted by Voc(SOC), represents an
equilibrium OCV, which is used to bridge the SOC to the
cell average OCV. The second part Vh is the hysteresis
voltage capturing the hysteresis effect of the OCV. The RC
circuit models the I-V characteristics and the transient
response of the battery cell. Particularly, the series
resistance, Rs, characterizes the charge/discharge energy
losses of the cell; the charge transfer resistance, Rc, and the
double layer capacitance, Cd, characterize the short-term
diffusion voltage Vd of the cell; Vcell represents the terminal
voltage of the cell. A discrete-time state-space expression of
the real-time battery model is:
ª SOC (k + 1)º ª1 0 0 º ª SOC (k )º
« » « » « » charge
«Vd (k + 1) » = «0 γ 0 » ⋅ «Vd (k ) »
«¬Vh (k + 1) »¼ «¬0 0 H »¼ «¬Vh (k ) »¼
(1)
ª− ηTs / Cmax 0 º 4
« » ªiB (k ) º
+ « Rc (1 − γ ) 0 » ⋅ «V »
( H − 1) sign(iB )»¼ ¬
h max ¼
«¬0
Vcell (k ) = Voc ( SOC (k )) − Vd (k ) − Rs iB (k ) + Vh ( k )
where k is the time index, Vcell(k) is the measured cell
terminal voltage, Ș is the Coulomb efficiency (assuming Ș =
1); Cmax denotes the maximum capacity of the cell, Ts is the
sampling period; iB(k) is the instantaneous current of the cell
Fig. 1. Real-time battery model with the hysteresis effect.
(iB is positive/negative if the cell is operated in the
discharge/charge mode); Vhmax is the maximum hysteresis
voltage; Ȗ = exp(-Ts/IJ) with IJ = Rc·Cd; sign(·) is the sign
function; and H(iB)=exp(-ȡ|iB|Ts), where ȡ is the hysteresis
parameter representing the convergence rate.
Fig. 2 shows the OCV curves as functions of SOC
extracted for a lithium-ion battery cell with an ambient
temperature of 21 °C, where Voccharge and Vocdischarge
represent the major upper and lower hysteresis loops (i.e.,
the charge and discharge OCV curves), respectively;
Voc(SOC) (i.e., Vocaverage) is considered the average value of
the charge and discharge OCV curves; VOC represents the
instantaneous OCV bounded by the major upper and lower
hysteresis loops. By subtracting Vh(k) from VOC, the
Voc(SOC) which has a one-to-one mapping to SOC will be
extracted [9].
The hysteresis model in (1) describes the dependency of
the hysteresis voltage Vh on the current rate, current
direction, and hysteresis boundaries. For example, after a
long-term charge current or a short-term but very large
charge current is applied, the hysteresis voltage will
converge to Vhmax [9]. In other words, VOC converges to the
major upper hysteresis loop. On the contrary, after a long-
term discharge current or a short-term but very large
discharge current is applied, VOC will converge to the
major lower hysteresis loop. Vhmax can be calculated by the
difference between Voccharge and Vocaverage. The values of the
parameters ȡ and Vhmax may depend on the SOC and the
temperature [5], [9].
Voc
4.2
Voc (=V )
average oc
Vocdischarge
Voltage (V)
VOC
3.8
(2)
3.6
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
SOC
Fig. 2. OCV curves of a lithium-ion cell at 21 °C.
5069
 Since the state matrix of the real-time battery model with Estimation Toolbox in MATLAB/Simulink.
the hysteresis effect in (1) is current-dependent, the z
transform cannot be applied to the real-time model directly. IV. VALIDATION
It is not easy to estimate the model parameters using linear A Samsung’s ICR18650-28A cylindrical lithium-ion
regression due to the Vh-dynamics. To facilitate the battery cell is tested to validate the proposed battery model
parameter estimation, the real-time battery model (1) and (2) and parameter estimation method. The nominal current and
is simplified as the following state-space form by assuming voltage of the cell are 2.8 Ah and 3.75 V, respectively. The
that VOC = b1·SOC+b0 = Voc(SOC) + Vh: battery cell is tested in a SUN ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS’
EC12 temperature chamber, as shown in Fig. 4, at three
ª − ηTs º different ambient temperatures: high temperature (35 °C),
ª SOC ( k + 1)º ª1 0 º ª SOC ( k )º « » ⋅ i ( k ) (3)
= ⋅ +
«V ( k + 1) » «0 γ » «V ( k ) » « max C room temperature (21 °C), and low temperature (5 °C). The
» B
¬ d ¼ ¬ ¼ ¬ d ¼ « R (1 − γ )» temperature chamber is connected to a nitrogen tank, which
¬ c ¼
provides the inflow liquid nitrogen for the test at the low
ª SOC (k )º ambient temperature condition. The measured cell voltage
Vcell (k ) = [b1 − 1] « » − Rs ⋅ iB (k ) + b0 (4)
¬Vd (k ) ¼ and current are collected from a CADEX C8000 battery
tester. In the full charge test, the battery cell is charged with
From the simplified model (3) and (4), the electrical
a constant current constant voltage (CCCV) charge method
resistances Rs and Rc and capacitance Cd can be identified
until it is fully charged. The charge cutoff voltage is 4.3 V
using a linear regression method, such as the moving
and the charge cutoff current is 0.01C (i.e., iB = 0.028 A). In
window least square method [4]. In this paper, a general
the full discharge test, the fully charged cell is discharged to
RLS method is applied to estimate the electrical impedance
the discharge cutoff voltage of 3 V.
parameters of the model.
The SOC-Voc look-up table is obtained from offline full
III. HYSTERESIS MODELING AND PARAMETER discharge and charge tests using a very small current (e.g.,
ESTIMATION 0.05C = 0.14 A), which minimally excites the transient
The hysteresis model parameters Vhmax and ȡ are response of the battery cell [10]. The SOC measurement
estimated by using the method shown in Fig. 3. An RLS- during discharge, SOCd, is computed as 1–(present
based online parameter identification algorithm is designed discharged capacity)/(total discharged capacity), and the
to estimate the impedance parameters of the simplified
battery model (3) and (4). The estimated impedances are
then used as the parameters of an ADSMO-based VOC
observer to estimate VOC(k) of a battery cell. The true Vh(k)
can be computed as
Vh (k ) = VOC (k ) − Voc ( SOC (k )) (5)
where SOC(k) is calculated by using the Coulomb counting
method described in (1) with the known initial SOC (i.e.,
SOC(0)) and Cmax of the cell; and Voc(SOC(k)) is obtained
from a SOC-Voc look-up table. Then, the best estimate of the
hysteresis model parameters are obtained by minimizing the
error between the true Vh(k) and the estimated Vˆh (k ) from Fig. 4. The experimental setup.
the hysteresis model described in (1) using a nonlinear least 4
square optimization method provided by the Control and 1.05
x 10

1.04
1.03
iB (k),...,(k-2) Simplified iB(k) Hysteresis
Cmax (As)

Parameter 1.02
Vcell (k),...,(k-2) Model Model
Identification
1.01
Internal Impedance Vh(k)
iB (k),...,(k-2)
VOC VOC(k) Vh(k) 1
Vcell (k),...,(k-2)
Observer 0.99

SOC(0) SOC(k) 0.98

Coulomb VOC(k) 10 20 30
iB(k) SOC/VOC
Counting T ( ° C)

Fig. 3. Block diagram of the hysteresis model parameter estimation method. Fig. 5. Cmax as a function of ambient temperature.

5070
 3

4.2 3 2

iB (A)
1

2 0
4
-1
0 100 200 300 400 500
1
(V)

T ime (seconds)

3.8

iB (A)
oc

0
V

°
35 C
3.6 21 C
°

°
-1
5C
3.4
-2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
SOC -3
0 1 2 3 4
(a) 4
T ime (seconds) x 10
(a)
°
0.25 35 C
°
21 C 4.2
0.2 °
5C
(V)

4
hmax

0.15

Vcell (V)
3.8
V

4.3
0.1
3.6 4.2

Vcell (V)
4.1
0.05
3.4 4

3.9
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 3.2 3.8
0 100 200 300 400 500
SOC Time (seconds)

(b) 3
0 1 2 3 4
Fig. 6. Voltage versus SOC for the lithium-ion cell at 35 °C, 21 °C, and 5 °C Time (seconds) 4
(ambient temperature): (a) Voc and (b) Vhmax. x 10
(b)

SOC measurement during charge, SOCc, is computed as
(present charged capacity)/(total charged capacity). The
curves of Vocdischarge versus SOCd and Voccharge versus SOCc
are then plotted, as shown in Fig. 2. The maximum capacity
Cmax is the same as the total discharged capacity. Fig. 5
shows the temperature dependency of the Cmax. Fig. 6 shows
the average OCV (i.e., Voc) and Vhmax versus SOC for the
lithium-ion cell at the ambient temperatures of 35 °C, 21 °C
and 5 °C. Two observations are obtained from Fig. 5 and
Fig. 6. First, the relationship between Voc and SOC depends
on temperature in the low operating SOC range (e.g., SOC <
0.2), but the temperature influence is negligible in the main
operating SOC range (e.g., 0.2 ” SOC ” 1). Second, a higher
value of Cmax and a lower value of Vhmax are observed at a
higher temperature since most chemical processes and ion-
conduction speed up at higher temperatures.
The proposed hysteresis model parameter estimation
method shown in Fig. 3 is implemented in
MATLAB/Simulink and validated by experiments. The
fully charged battery cell (i.e., SOC(0) = 1) is fully
discharged and then fully charged using a dynamic current
profile shown in Fig. 7(a). Fig. 7(b) shows the voltage
respond of the battery cell at 35 °C. The parameter
identification algorithm for the internal impedance
estimation is executed by using the data sampled at 1 Hz.
Then, the ADSMO-based VOC observer is executed with a
sampling rate of 100 Hz to estimate the VOC.
Fig. 7. Cell current and voltage during the test with an ambient temperature
of 35 °C: (a) iB, and (b) Vcell.
Fig. 8 compares Vocdischarge extracted from the offline
test in Section III with VOC estimated online by the
ADSMO. The results show that VOC is close to Vocdischarge
at a higher temperature of 35 °C. However, the difference
between Vocdischarge and VOC becomes larger at a lower
temperature, e.g., 5 °C. Therefore, a Vocdischarge-SOC look-
up table can be used for the SOC estimation only if the cell
is mainly in the discharged mode of operation and the
environmental temperature is high. However, the hysteresis
voltage should be estimated in order to accurately estimate
the SOC over the entire charge/discharge operating range
and the entire temperature range.
Fig. 9(a), (c) and (e) compare the estimated hysteresis
voltage, Vˆh , obtained from the hysteresis model parameter
estimation and the true hysteresis voltage Vh calculated by
(5). Table 1 lists the estimated hysteresis model parameters
Vhmax and ȡ. It is observed that ȡ and Vhmax decrease when
the temperature increases. The main SOC estimation error
occurs in the low operating SOC range and constant voltage
(CV) charging region. Fig. 9(b), (d) and (f) compare the
SOC values estimated using the real-time battery model
with and without the hysteresis model at different
temperatures. Without the hysteresis model, the accuracy of
SOC estimation is unsatisfactory. On the contrary, the SOC
estimation with the hysteresis model is accurate over the

5071
 Table 1: Temperature-dependent optimal hysteresis model parameters and SOC estimation result using the real-time battery model with hysteresis.
Maximum SOC estimation error Maximum SOC estimation error RMS SOC estimation error in the
Ambient temperature Vhmax ȡ
in low operating SOC range in main operating SOC range entire operating SOC range
35° C 0.0489 6.5169e-4 4.31% 3.187% 0.0134
21 °C 0.0649 0.0010 7.25% 3.798% 0.0176
5 °C 0.1174 0.0013 9.62% 4.583% 0.0283

entire operating range at various temperatures. These 1

results clearly show that using the hysteresis model with the 0.8 35° C
temperature-dependent parameters significantly improves 0.6
the accuracy of the SOC estimation over the entire

SOC
operating SOC and temperature ranges.
0.4
True
0.2 No Hysteresis
With Hysteresis
V. CONCULUSIONS 0
0 1 2 3 4

This paper has investigated and modeled the hysteresis

4
Time (seconds) x 10
(a) (b)
effect in a real-time battery model in both the discharge and 1

charge modes over the entire operating SOC and 0.8

21°C

temperature ranges of a lithium-ion battery cell. A method 0.6

has been developed to estimate the temperature-dependent

SOC
parameters of the hysteresis model. The inclusion of the
0.4
True
No Hysteresis
hysteresis model has improved the accuracy of the SOC 0.2
With Hysteresis

and maximum capacity estimations. The estimated 0

0 1 2 3 4
4
Time (seconds) x 10
(c) (d)
1
4.2
0.8 5° C

4.1 ° Vocdischarge CV Charging

35 C
0.6

SOC
VOC Estimate
Voltage (V)

4
0.4 True
No Hysteresis
3.9 With Hysteresis
0.2

3.8 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

4
Time (seconds) x 10
3.7 (e) (f)
0 5000 10000 Fig. 9. Comparison of true and estimated hysteresis voltage and SOC of the
Time (seconds) battery cell: (a) Vh at 35 °C, (b) SOC at 35 °C, (c) Vh at 21 °C, (d) SOC at
(a) 21 °C, (e) Vh at 5 °C, and (f) SOC at 5 °C.
4.2

4.1 ° Vocdischarge
21 C
maximum capacity has been used to determine the SOH of
Voltage (V)

VOC Estimate
4
the cell. Therefore, the proposed real-time battery model
3.9
incorporating the hysteresis effect will improve the
3.8 condition monitoring performance for lithium-ion batteries.
3.7 The proposed model has been implemented in
0 5000 10000
MATLAB/Simulink and validated by experimental results
Time (seconds) for a cylindrical lithium-ion battery cell.
(b)
4.2 APPENDIX
4.1 °
5C
Vocdischarge Samsung ICR18650-28A lithium-ion cell: discharge
VOC Estimate cutoff voltage (Vcutoff): 3 V; charge cutoff voltage (Vover): 4.3
Voltage (V)

4
V; maximum discharge current: 2C (5.6 A).
3.9

3.8
REFERENCES
[1] Y. Nishi, “Lithium ion secondary batteries; past 10 years and the
3.7
future,” Journal of Power Sources, vol. 100, no. 1-2, pp. 101-106,
0 5000 10000 2001.
Time (seconds) [2] L. Lu, X. Han, J. Li, J. Hua, and M. Ouyang, “A review on the key
(c) issues for lithium-ion battery management in electric vehicles,”
Journal of Power Sources, vol. 226, pp. 272–288, 2013.
Fig. 8. Comparison of the Vocdischarge extracted from offline test with VOC
estimated online for the cell at: (a) 35 °C, (b) 21 °C, and (c) 5 °C.

5072
[3] D. D. Domenico, G. Fiengo, and A. Stefanopoulou. “Lithium-ion
battery state of charge estimation with a Kalman filter based on an
electrochemical model,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on
Control Applications, Sept. 2008, pp. 702-707.
[4] T. Kim, W. Qiao, and L. Qu, “Online SOC and SOH estimation for
multicell lithium-ion batteries based on an adaptive hybrid battery
model and sliding-mode observer,” in Proc. IEEE Energy Conversion
Congress and Exposition, Sept. 2013, pp. 292-298.
[5] M. A. Roscher, O. Bohlen, and J. Vetter, “OCV hysteresis in Li-ion
batteries including two-phase transition materials,” International
Journal of Electrochemistry, vol. 2011, Feb. 2011.
[6] T. Kim, Y. Wang, Z. Sahinoglu, T. wada, S. Hara, and W. Qiao,
“State of charge estimation based on real-time battery model and
iterative SVSF,” in Proc. IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies
Conference, May 2014, pp. 132-137.
5073
[7] T. Kim, Y. Wang, Z. Sahinoglu, T. Wada, S. Hara, and W. Qiao, “A
Rayleigh quotient-based recursive total-least-sequres online
maximum capacity estimation for lithium-ion batteries,” IEEE Trans.
Energy Conversion, in press.
[8] X. Hu, S. Li, and H. Peng, “A comparative study of equivalent circuit
models for Li-ion batteries,” Journal of Power Sources, vol. 198, pp.
359-367, 2012.
[9] M. Verbrugge and E. Tate, “Adaptive state of charge algorithm for
nickel metal hydride batteries including hysteresis phenomena,”
Journal of Power Sources, vol. 126, no. 1-2, pp. 236-249, Feb. 2004.
[10] G. Plett, “Results of temperature-dependent LiPB cell modeling for
HEV SOC estimation,” in Proc. 21st Electric Vehicle Symposium,
Apr. 2005, pp. 1-9.