Smarter Battery Controls Itself

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart is part of a consortium dedicated to simplifying and integrating components to enhance electric car efficiency.  3Ccar, a European collaborative project, gets its funding from the ECSEL, the Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership Joint Undertaking. 3Ccar’s goal is to develop “Integrated Components for ComplexityControl in affordable electrified cars,” giving them a noble purpose and convoluted abbreviation. Fraunhofer’s mission in the consortium, to provide smart battery cells, looks to be well in hand with the recent announcement of battery cells that contain a “built-in microcontroller that records relevant physical parameters, such as the temperature and the state of charge of the cell—i.e., each cell knows its own condition. The cells communicate via the existing power wiring between battery cells; they can also communicate with other devices, such as the on-board controller, which uses the data from the cells to calculate the state of charge.” According to the Institute, having a controller …