Optimal charging of supercapacitors with user-specified charging time

Optimal charging of supercapacitors with energy efficiency maximization is of significance for supercapacitor charging systems. However, most existing studies are focused on the optimal charging of a single supercapacitor. In practical applications, supercapacitors are usually connected in series as packs. To address this problem, an optimal charging method is proposed for series-connected supercapacitor packs. By using it, the charging time can be specified by the user. Firstly, the existing charging methods for supercapacitor systems and their limitations are analyzed, especially when the charging time is limited. Then, a user-specified optimal charging method for supercapacitors with the user-specified charging time is designed, and the effectiveness of the proposed method in energy effectiveness maximization is rigorously proved. The performance of the proposed charging method is verified via extensive experimental results. The results show that the proposed charging method can effectively improve the energy efficiency under the limitation of charging time compared with the existing methods.