High-Performance, Efficient & Scalable BMS for Industrial Electric Vehicles
Industrial electric vehicles like forklifts, excavators, mining vehicles and automated guided vehicles are rapidly replacing traditional fuel/diesel ones. They emit very little noise, have low energy costs and help improve the environmental footprint!
However, handling such complex applications is a challenge for the battery pack without a smart battery management system. Our battery management platform is scalable and designed to manage high-voltage applications with ease!
Modular & Scalable Architecture
High Voltage Battery systems are usually built using multiple smaller battery modules connected in series or parallel. This calls for a modular approach to battery management.
We’ve designed FS-XT, our BMS for high voltage applications based on a distributed architecture. The system consists of a System Management Unit – SMU (Master) that manages the battery at a pack and multiple Battery Management Units – BMU (Slaves) that manage individual modules. Each BMU can monitor from 6 to 18 cells in series. Up to 40 BMUs can be connected to the SMU making it scalable to handle applications from 9V to 900V.
Safety & Protection
In addition to the basic protection measures of over-voltage, under-voltage, over-current, over-temperature, and under-temperature driven by the AFE and the Microcontroller, the FS-XT also comes with premium safety features suitable for automotive and storage applications!
High voltage battery packs like ones used in electric excavators can prove dangerous to human beings and other electronic equipment. Anything more than 50V-60V is lethal to humans. The FS-XT is built with measures like system interlock monitoring, contactor weld detection, support for the insulation monitoring device, and system communication with isolated CAN bus. These measures ensure fail-safe operations of the battery pack.
Smart & Connected!
A simple protector is not enough! Batteries form an important and expensive component of the end application. That’s why all our BMS are equipped with memory storage to log every second of battery life. The BMS has three modes of connection: CAN Connection, 2G/3G modem, and Bluetooth modem to offer instant access to data from anywhere. Our software platforms allow engineers to access this data and extract learnings to improve battery and application designs:
ION Lens - The BMS Companion App
— Companion smartphone application used to interface remotely with ION Energy BMS via Bluetooth
— View critical information of the battery like SOC, current, temperature and individual cell voltages
— View, edit and update the configuration files of the BMS
Altergo - Cloud Battery Analytics Platform
— Advanced analytics and insight into your fleet from a single dashboard
— Get alerted of any abnormal battery performance and take
timely action
— Uses data science to suggest corrective measures to prevent battery degradation and improve battery life by 40%
— Roll out over-the-air (OTA) updates and feature additions to the BMS over the cloud
Customizable & Configurable
Our battery management platform is designed using a model-based-design approach. This allows users to configure the BMS on Altergo to match the application’s requirements with the battery’s capabilities. Users can customize over 200 parameters relating to power distribution, ignition controls, balancing, charger control and much more.
Paralleling
Heavy-duty industrial vehicles like tractors, excavators, mining vehicles require large battery packs ranging from 300kWh to 1000kWh. Normally these are not single battery systems but multiple systems connected in parallel.
Paralleling just 2 batteries together is a challenge for the BMS! This is because when two batteries of significantly different voltages are connected in parallel, a large amount of circulating current will flow between them which can damage the battery packs. Hence the BMS needs to ensure that batteries are allowed to be connected in parallel only when their voltages are similar.
The FS-LT BMS is designed and built with paralleling algorithms to enable it to support not just 2, 3 or 4 batteries but a total of 18 batteries connected in parallel.
High-Performance Every Time
As manufacturers push the boundaries with all-electric versions of forklifts, excavators, loaders and mining vehicles, we’ve designed our battery management platform to deliver high performance, every time.
The FS-XT BMS runs advanced SOC and SOH algorithms to provide accurate system information. It supports 2 current sensing channels, real-time clock circuitry, configurable input and output ports, temperature sensing channels and can drive up to 8 external relays. It also features smart passive balancing algorithm with a max. balancing current of 420mA.
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