Keysight Technologies Inc. has launched a suite of test and measurement solutions for the rapidly growing battery, hybrid and electric vehicles (HEVs/EVs), and home energy management systems (HEMS) markets.
According to Keysight, the global electric vehicle market – ranging from mild hybrids to battery-electric vehicles and HEMS – is fast growing and very dynamic, with a large number of new application areas and implementation characteristics. Based on these dynamics, many cell and battery manufacturers are facing challenges to deal with the exponential demand for costly, high-power/high-voltage cells in the 300 V range. This is compared with the traditional, more cost-efficient 12 V cells.
The suite includes a high-power/high-voltage power converter test solution, which enables safe and effective testing of power converters and onboard charging subsystems present in HEVs/EVs and HEMS; a regenerative power system with high-power/high-voltage battery emulation capabilities and power regeneration, ensuring efficient testing due to reuse of energy and reduced cooling requirements; and li-ion cell test systems, which provide a significant reduction in time required to measure cell self-discharge characteristics and discern cell quality and also offer significantly reduced cell design and evaluation cycle times.
The company says its suite of EV and HEMS solutions provides design and test engineers with powerful, versatile and efficient solutions that will help drive their innovations to market faster and at a lower cost.
“As higher-voltage batteries and devices are added to electric vehicles, and the push for e-mobility-based concepts continues, designers and manufacturers need to deal with economic challenges while mitigating safety risks and ensuring high-quality products for end users at the same time,” says Siegfried Gross, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s automotive and energy solutions business unit.
“Keysight has in-depth experience in power electronics – from generation to conversion – and moving it from source to load. We will continue to focus our innovations on design and test solutions, which will help to advance battery, EV/HEV and HEMS applications, and implementations from an economic, performance and safety perspective across the entire lifecycle,” he says.