Battery test system enhances safety, performance of EVs

The system is designed to help Tier 1 suppliers and automakers adapt to the complexity and scale of EV battery testing through enhanced customization, automation and connection of data across the entire battery test workflow to ensure performance and accelerate time to market.

The company says that it reduces test development and configuration times and increases test efficiency.

“This 3.0 version of BTS changes the way the software works to go beyond build to connect to analyse,” says Arturon Vargas, Chief Solutions Marketing Mnager at NI.

“The design engineer no longer has to spend days going through validation data to produce an anlysis report. That process is now automated saving time.”

NI’s BTS enables scalability of testing by providing an out-of-the-box experience for battery test workflows, along with customization capability to fit a variety of test roles and needs. This software-connected system is uniquely positioned to integrate components for battery test such as power electronics, environmental chambers, measurements and test channels at scale. It facilitates coordination of activities between design and test teams to request, configure, run, monitor and report on test results that inform critical design changes.

“Automakers are investing heavily to deliver on EV timelines, which has placed increased importance on test to ensure this technology meets both time commitments and consumer expectations for safety,” said Vargas . “NI’s BTS combines decades of test and measurement experience with our powerful software to enable automakers to test their batteries at scale, within budget and at pace with market demands.”

To strengthen it battery test portfolio NI acquired NH Research (NHR), Heinzinger Automotive and Kratzer Automation. Both NHR and Heitzinger extend NI’s reach into high-power test and its global capabilities with NHR based in the US and Heitzinger in Germany.

NI also recently acquired Germany-based Kratzer. It gives customers access to Kratzer’s centre of excellence to test equipment and tap into the expertise of Kratzer .

Additionally, NI’s SystemLink™ software, BTS software and data analytics tools work together to ensure traceability of test results, repeatability of the tests themselves and management of the entire test-cell and test lab operation, ultimately bringing modern software engineering tools and practices into battery testing.