Battery Emulator To Test Electric Drivelines

With the obvious interest in batteries and electrification in vehicle powertrains, a United Kingdom driveline engineering specialist has expanded its test capabilities to include batteries.   

Drive System Design (DSD), Leamington Spa, England, said it has added a battery emulator that replaces the battery pack in an electric vehicle powertrain. The emulator ensures a controlled power supply, allowing the system to be tested without the usual battery pack constraints of charge/discharge behavior and the limitation of a reducing available voltage.

DSD said output can be quickly varied up to 800 volts and 800 amps (continuous) and 960 amps (peak), equivalent to a 300 kW e-machine, and the unit is both modular and scalable.  DSD specializes in the engineering, development, test and control of transmission and future driveline systems.

“These latest additions to our test facility reinforce our ability to design, develop and validate hybrid drivelines in their entirety, encompassing everything between the battery pack and the wheels,” said Rob Oliver, DSD chief engineer.

The other part of the DSD expansion is the installation of a 450 kW highly transient Engine Torque Pulse Simulator (ETPS). DSD said it has identified on-going demand for internal combustion engine simulation as a significant element of hybrid powertrain development for at least the next decade.

“The ETPS machine allows highly repeatable testing of the transmission and driveline without requiring an engine, which may only exist as a virtual model or a scarce prototype in some cases,” said Rob Oliver, Drive System Design chief engineer.

The ultra-low inertia ETPS machine allows DSD to reproduce the firing torque pulse characteristics of almost any internal combustion engine, based on measured data or model predictions, at up to 800 Nm steady state and 1600 Nm transient torque.