Battery lab solution drives down costs

This article originally appeared in the June'23 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES's Magazine Archives for more featured publications.

This is just the ticket as far as Emerson is concerned. In its announcement of the acquisition, the company cited, amongst other benefits, the ability to be in markets like semiconductor and electric vehicle manufacturing.

“NI expands Emerson's reach into the design and validation phase of the lifecycle, providing early access to customers,” says the company. “Overall, NI will increase Emerson's end market exposure in discrete markets to 18% of sales, which will be Emerson's second largest industry segment.”

Not forgetting that with 20% of sales in software, NI also increases Emerson's exposure to high-growth industrial software opportunities.

Designed for electric vehicle battery validation labs, the software-defined battery lab solution covers the entire, sustainable battery lifecycle from research and development to validation, production, second-life, and remanufacturing. It supports EV manufacturers and battery suppliers in tackling the pressing challenges of time-to-market, cost, and battery performance.

“We’re in the nascent stages of the battery revolution,” said Drita Roggenbuck, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Transportation Business Unit at NI. “Companies are faced with driving down battery costs, improving performance, innovating endlessly, and scaling. At a time when new vehicle programs are as short as ever, and battery validation and production must scale immediately and continuously through the end of the decade, NI’s software-defined battery lab offers the step function change needed to improve time to market and battery performance through test systems and test insights.

Unlike fragmented or closed-vendor approaches to battery testing, NI’s solution allows battery manufacturers to own their test strategy to maximise capital investment reuse, allow test customisation, and establish vendor independence.

The key components of the solution encompass a comprehensive set of software, instrumentation, and services needed to build out robust testing and data management capabilities, including:

Battery Test Development and Execution Software: Battery Test Software powered by PAtools streamlines testing processes and helps users to interpret and act on accurate and reliable test results. NI’s Battery Test Software provides proven battery testing capabilities out-of-the-box while also allowing customisation and extensibility through LabVIEW and other common test software.

Lab System and Data Management Software: The newly announced NI SystemLink Enterprise software is a scalable enterprise solution for managing labs, improving test operations, and analysing test results to extract meaningful insights from test and measurement data. It offers lab management functionality including:

• Test request tracking and scheduling

• Tester status, utilisation, and health monitoring

• Test software management and deployment

• Battery data aggregation, visualisation, and analytics

Battery Cycler Offering and Third Party Integration: NI’s extensive battery cycler portfolio offers high-performance, easy-to-use, safe, and reliable solutions needed for any phase of battery development. NI’s newest cycler, HPS-17000, provides up to 150kW power and is ideal for testing in a fast-paced lab environment that needs to be scaled and easily serviced. NI’s open software allows integration with third party cyclers to increase development efficiency and enable reuse.

Battery Measurement and Control System: The NI battery measurement and control hardware is built on NI’s software-connected, modular hardware platforms. These systems can be quickly reconfigured and customised to meet rapidly changing test requirements, including integration with third-party components. The real-time operating system provides deterministic operation, while built-in timing and synchronisation allows to easily scale up channel and measurement capabilities.

Global Engineering Integration and Support: NI’s global presence of engineering services and extensive partner network ensures local support and solution delivery to meet a wide range of application requirements.