A new battery management system will run multiple complex battery models in real time, using a very high-powered processor to extract more energy and power from every charge. This matters because current battery management systems are too crude to fully exploit the available energy in lithium-ion cells and supercapacitors. The project, led by Williams Advanced Engineering, combines software and hardware acceleration to model battery behaviour with far greater fidelity. This allows faster charging, enhanced power delivery, and higher regenerative energy collection across all charge states. A hybrid battery containing both lithium-ion cells and carbon-ion supercapacitors will test these performance gains. If successful, the technology could accelerate electric vehicle adoption by making batteries charge faster and last longer. The project also includes a communications platform that captures a lifetime of battery data, using an optimised data set to minimise transmission. This system will map the battery’s operational value at the end of its first life and enable vehicle-to-grid applications, including an arbitration system for controlled charging of multiple vehicles with a local energy grid. The wider adoption of electric vehicles depends on infrastructure that can manage distributed charging loads—this project directly addresses that gap.
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"The WIZer Batteries project, led by Williams Advanced Engineering, will deliver a revolutionary approach to battery management, new hybrid supercapacitor and lithium ion battery systems and a communications platform that will deliver data and capability to customers, vehicle manufacturers and infrastructure providers. Using a very high-powered processor the battery management system (BMS) will use software and hardware acceleration to run multiple complex battery models in real time. These models will build on the work of the Faraday Institution Multi-Scale Modelling Fast Start led by Imperial College. The greater fidelity allowed by the solution will allow greater exploitation of the available energy and power within the battery, resulting in many benefits including faster charging, enhanced power delivery and higher regenerative energy collection across the full range of charge states. Codeplay Software also bring a revolutionary approach to the exploitation of processor hardware, thereby increasing the performance of the system and introducing potential for accelerated machine learning and AI techniques to be introduced. The performance benefits of this technology will be tested on a hybrid battery containing both lithium ion cells and carbon ion supercapacitors, which will be developed by Williams Advanced Engineering with Zap&Go, enabled by enhanced battery management capability and new models. Further exploiting the BMS and battery technology developed through the WIZer Batteries project will be a communications and infrastructure system to be used to capture a lifetime of data from the battery. Focussed around an optimised data set, minimising the required data transmission, the system will be designed to deliver all data required to analyse battery condition, enabling the potential operational value of the battery at the end of its first and subsequent lives to be accurately mapped. The developed solution will also deliver the required functionality for vehicle-to-grid applications, including an arbitration system that will allow the controlled charging of multiple independent vehicles with a local energy grid, supporting wider adoption of electric vehicles."
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