ESTRELIA · Energy Storage with lowered cost and improved Safety and Reliability for electrical vehicles

High costs together with concerns for driving range, reliability and safety are still the main hindrance for market adaption of full electrical vehicles (FEVs). ESTRELIA aims to provide building blocks with enhanced reliability and safety at lowered costs for smart energy storage for FEVs.This is accomplished by proposing a modular approach with ultracapacitor power packs with higher density with 50% energy advantage developed by Corning and evaluated by Valeo and Austrian Battery Research Lab. This will be enabled by BMS ICs based on a new concept in the HV-technology from austriamicrosystems enhancing also the modularity of Li-Ion batteries as energy packs. It will for the first time provide a flexible active cell balancing chip set also suited for the high accuracy demanding monitoring of Li-Ion batteries. The BMS ICs and architecture proposed from FHG will be verified on prototypes built by E4V. Tests with new HV test equipment developed by Active Technologies will proof test isolation protections in the environment of several 100's V as present in FEVs. The new BMS IC concept will enable higher efficiency by lower energy loss and improved long term reliability and lower the electronic component costs for BMS of Li-Ion energy packs by 1/3rd.ESTRELIA will also develop new safety sensors which are based on silicon based MEMS approaches delivering enhanced safety functions at lowered cost compared to existing solutions. While the gas sensor will allow detection of very low levels of volatile organic compounds as emitted in thermal overruns of battery packs, the new spark detector concept will enable general safety functions by flame detection from all hazardous events in a FEV.Finally the development of new actuators as low cost power antifuse by FhG together with the new energy management HW (BMS IC) and SW will enable dynamic reconfigurable topologies for the energy storage unit, thus still enabling the functionality of the FEV despite single failing cells.