Eatron Technologies and About:Energy have been awarded funding from UKRI’s Faraday Battery Challenge to develop a first-of-its-kind AI-powered decision engine that delivers increased battery longevity, accelerates time-to-market, and cements the UK’s position as a global leader in AI-powered intelligent battery management systems.
Current battery management systems (BMS) rely on simple, empirical methods that sacrifice accuracy in return for reduced computational effort. Conventional AI-powered methods, meanwhile, remain challenging to integrate within the BMS due to their complexity, demanding training process, and the need for large volumes of input data.
The new project – dubbed aiMAGINE – brings together About:Energy’s pioneering high-fidelity electrochemical battery models that achieve rapid and accurate calibration with Eatron’s unique edge and AI-powered cloud platform. Combined they will deliver highly accurate assessments of state-of-charge (SoC), state-of-health (SoH) and patented remaining useful life (RUL) predictions.
AI complements the electrochemical models, enhancing predictions by accounting for complex physical behaviours that cannot be modelled. As a result, the pioneering new AI-powered decision engine (AI-DE) will provide highly accurate operational parameters to the BMS, significantly increasing battery pack longevity and simplifying integration.
Umut Genc, CEO of Eatron, said, “Implementing our novel AI-powered intelligent battery software layer with this revolutionary AI-DE can extend a battery pack’s first life by up to 20%. This makes it possible for OEMs to design optimally-sized, more cost-effective battery packs, and this actively contributes to our sustainable e-mobility goals by reducing raw material consumption and CO2 emissions.”
Kieran O’Regan, Co-Founder and COO of About:Energy, said, “The use of our advanced electrochemical models vastly streamlines AI model training, and this facilitates both ease of integration and a reduced time-to-market for OEMs and Tier 1s. The high-fidelity modelling reduces the need for physical experiments while delivering a clearer, more accurate picture of battery health. Armed with this information, an AI-DE-equipped BMS can deliver not just a longer battery lifetime, but faster charging times, too.”
Eatron and About:Energy will capitalise on their existing relationships with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to develop the system for use in both 2- and 4-wheeled electric vehicles. The two businesses collaboratively applied for the grant after sowing the seeds for a partnership at the Battery Technology Global Business Innovation Programme in Japan, where Innovate UK brought together some of the UK’s most promising innovators in the battery development and technology space.