The research team has developed a new sensor technology to reduce the weight and cost of lithium batteries

Not long ago, a German research team recently developed a new sensor technology that reduces the weight and cost of electric vehicles (EVs) and other types of lithium-ion batteries.

It is understood that Phillip Dorst is a member of the Power Systems Technology and Electrical Mechatronics Research Group at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, which has developed a new concept for monitoring battery current and voltage, reducing battery life The technical burden, as well as adding new features.

Typically, an Ev Battery consists of a single battery that can contain up to 12 batteries, each battery being monitored by its own voltage sensor. Sensors are important for monitoring the battery's Lithium Batteries, and may burn if they overheat or over-work.

In a typical EV battery, there is a current sensor and multiple voltage sensors to do the job. Dorset said that in the EV battery, the sensor is a considerable weight and cost driver.

Phillip Dorst and his team developed the new technology. Data map

To reduce some of this weight, Dost and his colleagues came up with a way to reduce the number of sensors that previous EV batteries needed to monitor current and voltage to one, regardless of how many cells the battery had. The sensor can also provide battery balancing, usually as a separate technical component, in EV batteries. This function ensures that the energy in the battery is redistributed evenly.

Dost said battery equalization is crucial to maintain the maximum energy output of EV batteries, especially when they age. Each battery reacts differently during charging and discharging so that some batteries charge more than others at the end of the process. However, once one battery is fully charged, the charging of the other battery is stopped, which may cause the battery to deteriorate if there is an imbalance in the energy distribution. Battery balancing can counteract this process and maintain even lower battery efficiency.

The researchers said the team developed a sensor system that can be scaled to have a different number of batteries. It can also be used with other battery types such as laptops, cordless power tools, uninterruptible power supplies and solar energy storage systems to reduce its weight and cost and increase battery life.

Dorian's colleague Florian Langner developed the prototype of the sensor in his master's thesis in the University's Institute of Power Systems Technology and Electrical Machinery. Dost said it will soon be on the road to commercialization. Some industrial companies have already expressed their interest in the product. Meanwhile, engineers at the University of Leuer will continue their efforts to improve technology, evaluate their prototypes more closely, and replace individual components to meet the automotive industry's requirements.