Patent ID: 8274261

Claim:
A method for monitoring the voltage of each of a plurality of cells of a battery pack, comprising: monitoring a voltage potential for each of a plurality of cells in a battery pack utilizing a single channel of a battery control unit within the battery pack; discontinuing current flow from battery pack when the voltage potential of any cell is determined by the battery control unit to be below a predetermined minimum voltage during discharge of the battery pack; and reducing the voltage potential stored in any one or more of the cells when a voltage differential between the respective one or more cells and any other one of the cells having a lesser voltage potential is determined by the battery control unit to exceed a predetermined maximum differential during charging of the battery pack; wherein monitoring the voltage potential for the plurality of cells comprises: measuring a cumulative voltage potential across all of the cells as the battery pack is discharging; measuring a cumulative voltage across a sub-set of the cells, the sub-set comprising N number of the cells where the number N is evenly dividable into the total number of cells; dividing the cumulative voltage potential of all the cells by N to determine a calculated voltage across the sub-set of the cells; and comparing the measured voltage across the sub-set of the cells with the calculated voltage across the sub-set of the cells to obtain a voltage differential.