Page 22 - EngineerIT December 2021

ELECTRONICS

Electric vehicle wireless battery

management revolution has begun

and the ROI potential is huge

By Shane O’Mahony, Electro-Mobility marketing manager

high-level cost analysis, from design and manufacturing to battery reuse and security investment. Only then will the cost savings of
protections, reveals an opportunity for OEMs to increase profits on next-generation wBMS be clearly and fully manifest.
A lectric vehicles leveraging wireless battery management systems (wBMS). Analog Devices embraced the myriad
e
The electric vehicle (EV) industry’s evolution to wBMS was in many ways inevitable. The design challenges imposed with wBMS
benefits of wireless vs. wired BMS are crystal clear to anyone who has grappled with the and through hard work and investment in
complexity, BOM cost, space, and labour penalties inherent to wired systems, no matter the a complete, scalable wBMS solution, we
application. successfully met the requirements needed
wBMS has however showed promise in saving up to 90% of the wiring and up to 15% to support an OEM from concept to launch.
of the volume in battery packs for next-generation EVs. This is achieved by eliminating the In so doing, we’ve identified additional
communication wiring harness and connectors, leveraging instead an intelligent battery module opportunities for design and cost efficiencies
with fully integrated electronics. The only exposed connectors are the +ve and –ve terminals. that will smooth the road ahead for the
But the benefits achievable with wBMS technology can only be realised with massive OEMs that recognise wBMS as the clear path
investments in the design, validation and manufacturing infrastructure needed to accommodate forward. Based on early OEM feedback, wBMS
it. What’s more, the security and safety requirements unique to wireless systems invite a top-to- is projected to be much more cost-effective
bottom reassessment at every stage of the battery pack life cycle, from manufacturing to reuse. and otherwise advantageous to implement
At first blush, the scale of this effort imposes a seemingly impossible barrier to OEM adoption. industry-wide for EVs in the long run.
Analog Devices and GM shouldered this investment in wBMS at the technology’s outset, in
anticipation of the significant cost savings as well as manufacturing scalability and efficiency to be Manufacturing efficiency advantages
achieved with its mainstream – perhaps ubiquitous – commercial adoption in the years ahead. To commit to wBMS technology is to re-
To be clear, OEMs eyeing wBMS as a quick cost saving opportunity should reset their imagine how the EV factory is designed.
expectations right out of the gate. To fully unlock the cost benefits of wBMS, OEMs must first But the merits of going fully wireless from
regard battery packs as assets to be effectively managed over time – through the “first life” production to product become hard to ignore
on board the vehicle, and on to the “second life”, to achieve the highest possible return on when all the moving parts, some literally, are
considered.
It’s been observed that there’s a big
difference between almost robotic and fully
robotic manufacturing. Put simply, as soon as
humans are introduced to the factory floor
environment populated with high-speed
robotics, significant safeguards must also
be put in place to protect them, and this
inherently reduces the production efficiency
that could otherwise be achieved with full
end-to-end automation.
The use of wireless communication
throughout the factory floor for wBMS
production truly opens the door to touchless,
fully robotic EV battery pack manufacturing.
In addition to leveraging the benefits
of wBMS at the vehicle level, OEMs can
further reduce their CAPEX and OPEX by
Figure 1: Analog Devices introduces the automotive industry’s first wireless battery management system
for electric vehicles. eliminating the need for valuable personnel

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