NachLadBar

 

Sustainable Charging Electronics Based on Flexible Power-Electronic Building Blocks

 

With the increasing number of electric vehicles in public transport, the need for a large-scale expansion of charging infrastructure is also growing. The effort required to develop charging systems for electric vehicles is generally high, as they have to be individually and customized to the various requirements such as grid connection, battery voltage and rated power. Due to the individuality of the charging electronics and the missing real-time information about the status of individual components, the entire system usually has to be replaced in the event of a component failure. At the same time, a combination of charging electronics from different manufacturers, technologies or component generations is not possible due to the lack of plug&play compatibility. This prevents a sustainable and subsequent expansion towards higher performance or new technologies.

In order to solve these challenges, ISEA and its project partners are researching intelligent, reliable and sustainable charging electronics based on „Power Electronic Building Blocks“ (PEBBs) in the NachLadBaR project funded by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi). PEBBs should be able to be combined into a charging electronic across manufacturers, generations and technologies. Thus, future charging systems should be modular, leading to a strong reduction of development costs, allowing flexible retrofitting to higher power levels and enabling the replacement of individual components during predictive maintenance. Additional monitoring, diagnostics, predictive maintenance, and recycling strategies are intended to enable a 2nd-life scenario of the power electronic components, thus counteracting the waste of resources.

Within the research group "Reliable Power Electronic Systems", ISEA primarily focuses on two main research areas in the project. Novel cooperative control concepts for PEBBs are being explored that enable interconnected operation of different modular converters with minimal communication required. In the second research area, ISEA is working on methods to actively increase the performance and lifetime of power electronic systems without losing system reliability. For this purpose, methods for active thermal management as well as for aging diagnostics and lifetime prediction of power electronic systems are being researched.

 

Duration

01/2021 - 12/2023

 

Funding

 

Partners: