Eaton to develop predictive battery management for hybrids
28 August 2012
Eaton Corporation is to develop a power control system for hybrid vehicles to reduce the size of the system battery without a loss of battery life or vehicle performance.
The fuel-efficient application is intended to optimize the operation of hybrid electric vehicles, from passenger cars to commercial vehicles.
The $2.8 million project is funded jointly between Eaton and a grant from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E). The goal is to reduce the size of the battery by 50 percent and improve the total performance of the system and its charge rate while maintaining fuel economy and overall vehicle performance.
The development project will be led by Eaton’s Innovation Center team in Southfield, Michigan, who will work with a team from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Eaton’s engineers and scientists will leverage the company’s expertise in intelligent power management systems and hybrid technology with the NREL’s expertise in battery modelling and prognostics.
In addition to hybrid vehicle applications, Eaton sees opportunities to extend this technology into other areas where hybrid power management requires extended battery life, including community infrastructure, data centres, manufacturing and general industrial.