Page 23 - EngineerIT December 2021

ELECTRONICS

maintain a stock of spare modules, and they
are a lot easier to swap in/out of battery
packs during vehicle service. There’s no time
loss or frustration associated with tracking
and locating inventory, or attempting
to remove the battery harness (without
breaking it) during a service call. Modules
are simply scanned in/out as they migrate
through the supply chain, and finally from
stock shelf to vehicle, with installation ease
that traditional wired BMS could never
match. This impacts more than just service at
the EV development phase. Pack designers
no longer need to spend precious time and
space to accommodate how the harness will
be removed and replaced, resulting in faster
design and more energy dense packs.
Figure 2: No touch, fully automatic manufacturing is a strongly growing trend in the EV industry. wBMS features can also enable
batteries to measure and report their
to spend time manually wiring battery packs volume production across a wide range of own performance, increasing early failure
to harnesses and/or testing modules and vehicle classes to meet evolving consumer detection and helping avoid costly vehicle
connections (with the ongoing safety training demand. In adopting wBMS to underpin recalls, while enabling optimised battery
this activity entails). its breakthrough Ultium battery platform, pack assembly. The data can be monitored
This aspect of wBMS provides up- GM can scale the platform across its brands remotely throughout the battery life cycle –
and-coming and established OEMS alike and vehicle segments, from work trucks to from assembly to warehouse and transport,
the opportunity to bypass legacy wired performance vehicles. More broadly, GM through installation and maintenance.
production in favour of fully wireless, fully credits wBMS technology for enabling the For OEMs interested in maximising the
robotic manufacturing. In turn, they are more widespread electrification of its fleet. usable life – and revenue potential – of their
enabled to realise manufacturing efficiencies But there’s much more that can be done battery packs, wBMS makes second life
and flexibility that make the most of their to lower the carbon footprint of a battery battery re-purposing much more efficient.
limited budgets, keeping them nimble and pack over its usable lifetime, while extending Minus the harness, battery packs are
competitive with deep-pocketed, established the associated revenue potential. This is much easier to repair and re-use to ensure
players. By bypassing the need for robotics achieved through a “reduce, repair, and re- the longest possible lifetime and a more
devoted to the time and cost-intensive use” strategy whereby wBMS can help reduce environmentally friendly carbon footprint
tasks of manipulating wired battery pack costly vehicle recalls, streamline repairs, and overall. OEMs can readily resell their used
harnesses, OEMs of all sizes can achieve the promote battery re-usage as a preferred batteries for applications like solar or wind
full promise of high speed, high efficiency alternative to scrapping and recycling. energy storage once they reach a determined
robotic production. Analog Devices has wBMS makes it considerably easier to state of health.
developed wBMS so that automation can
be supported at each step of production,
making it easier for OEMs to transition to a
wBMS-enabled factory.

Enhanced scalability and flexibility
across the life cycle
With wBMS, OEMs and battery suppliers
are liberated to design and produce as
many battery pack variants as they like,
without ever designing a harness. They can
leverage a common wBMS platform that’s
software-configurable for individual vehicle
models, at lower overall development
costs. This remains the heart of the wBMS
value proposition: OEMs gain increased
flexibility to scale their EV fleets into Figure 3: Packs are easier to repair, re-use, and recycle.

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