The results of the project at hand shall open the possibility to accelerate the entire development process of alternative automotive propulsion systems. The industrial  development of alternative  automotive  propulsion systems requires tremendous efforts in the fields of battery technology, power electronics, electric  motors and methods for energy efficient control. In particular, the performance and reliability of energy storage systems play a key role.

Hence, the project  at hand is  aimed  at new highly  dynamic  testing  systems for exactly  these applications:  With  the help  of switch-mode  DC-DC  converters, the emulation  as well  as the testing of electric energy storage systems shall be made possible with unprecedented dynamic range. Existing testing systems provide either high power or high dynamic bandwidth – but not both.  Exactly this constraint shall be eliminated. This undertaking is supported by the results from a successful preceding project and by the expertise and infrastructure within AVL List GmbH.

Three main goals are pursued:

First,  the theoretical  base for  new control  methods targeted at highly  dynamic  operation  of switch-mode converters are developed. Thereby, the key will be the principle of Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control  (FCS-MPC). In contrast to conventional power electronic control schemes, the switching times of the IGBTs (Insulated-gate bipolar transistor ) are directly determined through optimization with FCS-MPC. Such a method can potentially exploit the existing power hardware to its maximum. However, due to the high computational effort that is required, FCS-MPC has been used only sparingly so far.

Second, the new control  methods shall  be applied  to highly  dynamic  battery testing  systems. The ageing of lithium ion batteries and their useable capacity critically depends on how dynamic the load profile is. Hence it will be necessary to test batteries with dynamic switching patterns (and the resulting current ripple), as if these are loaded with an inverter.

Third,  new systems for emulating  batteries  or  fuel  cells  shall  be conceived  and investigated. By emulating  a real  battery with  a battery emulator,  the cost and time  required  for testing  of electrified  power trains  can be reduced significantly.  The time  consuming  preconditioning  of batteries is no longer necessary. Future battery emulators also have to provide the high dynamic range that can be expected due the use of traction batteries in commercial vehicles (e.g. trucks).