BattVolt - Battery control with dynamic reconfiguration and controllable voltage

Research Project, 2020 – 2023

The life of a battery pack in a vehicle is normally reached when the capacity of the worst cell has dropped to about 70-80% of its original capacity. However, variations between cells can be significant, which is why the majority of cells in the battery pack can still have a very large remaining capacity. As the project intends to develop a technology that relieves the worst cells and uses the better cells more, we can expect a significant increase in battery life.

The purpose of the project is to incorporate power electronics and implement optimal control strategies for the next generation of lithium-ion batteries, optimized for use in larger electric vehicles such as trucks and buses. The electronics and control strategies must make it possible to dynamically configure the battery cells that the batteries are made up of in an optimal way, with the aim of achieving increased capacity and life of the battery at the same time as the battery has a controllable output voltage. Preliminary calculations indicate that the customer value of the new technology significantly exceeds the cost, which indicates that this new technology can both have a large commercial value and lead to a significantly more resource-efficient product from a life cycle perspective.