Micro Short-Circuit Diagnosis of eVTOL Lithium-Ion Batteries Under High-Rate Discharge via Multiscale Residual Analysis

Abstract

Accurate diagnosis of micro short-circuits (MSCs) is essential for ensuring the safety of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Unlike conventional electric vehicles, eVTOL batteries normally operate under high-rate discharge conditions, where strong polarization and rapid voltage variations are apt to mask the weak signatures of MSCs. To address this challenge, this study proposes an MSC diagnosis method based on multiscale voltage residual analysis. A battery model is first established to characterize the normal response under high-rate discharge, and the discrepancy between the measured and estimated terminal voltages is used to construct the model residual. Features describing the overall voltage evolution, residual statistical distribution, and multiscale residual fluctuations are then extracted. Specifically, the shadow region integral area and voltage–capacity slope are used to characterize the global voltage trajectory, while the residual mean and kurtosis quantify the systematic deviation and non-Gaussian fluctuation of the residual. Wavelet decomposition is further applied to capture the low- and high-frequency residual characteristics. After feature reduction, eight representative features are retained to establish the diagnostic model. Experimental validation under high-rate discharge conditions demonstrates that the proposed method can effectively identify MSCs despite interference from abnormal aging, thereby reducing the false alarms caused by feature similarity. This study provides a reliable approach for micro short-circuit diagnosis of eVTOL lithium-ion batteries under strong polarization and highly dynamic operating conditions.