SCAPE, PowerDrive, HiPe and RHODaS met for the first time to define the most appropriate clustering activities to boost the results of the four projects.
On 1 December 2022, the four projects funded under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D5-01-02 - Nextgen EV components: Integration of advanced power electronics and associated controls met for the first time to define the most appropriate clustering activities to share the results of each project's research activities.
SCAPE, PowerDrive, HiPe and RHODaS joined forces with the aim of sharing knowledge and facing common challenges regarding the development of new technologies in each of the projects. The cluster will also organize joint events and network with relevant stakeholders in the field of electric mobility.
The project's members will meet periodically in order to discuss and manage the different types of foreseen activities.
Discover more on SCAPE:
SCAPE - Switching-Cell-Array-based Power Electronics conversion for future electric vehicles
Coordinator: IREC
Duration: 01/07/2022 - 30/06/2026
Cordis: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101056781
Website: www.scapepower.eu
SCAPE aims at tackling a prevalent shortcoming on nowadays electric vehicle (EV) market; i.e., the lack of standardization on the EV power conversion system. Such shortcoming is derived from the traditional power-converter design approach, which involves a range of power semiconductor devices with different ratings and multiple power circuit topologies to select from. This results in EV OEMs investing billions of euros to develop their own solutions for each type and model of EV and losing the opportunity of leveraging on scale economies and improving the power system performance. SCAPE plans on tackling these challenges with three main objectives: i) Propose a standardisable, modular, and scalable EV power conversion system, based on multilevel power converters, allowing significant cost reduction from scale economies. ii) Develop a highly compact and integrated building-block implementation, with improved efficiency, power density, and reliability. iii) Propose intelligent control strategies, online diagnosis, and digital twins for predictive maintenance with machine learning.
Discover more on PowerDrive:
PowerDrive - Power electronics optimisation for next generation electric vehicle components
Coordinator: KU Leuven
Duration: 01/05/2022 - 31/10/2025
Cordis: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101056857
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerDriveEU
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powerdriveeu/
Other relevant links: https://www.energyville.be/en/research/powerdrive-power-electronics-optimisation-next-generation-electric-vehicle-components
POWERDRIVE intends to implement innovative strategies to improve the efficiency and power density as well as to reduce the cost of electric powertrains while keeping performance high and reliable. The technologies developed in POWERDRIVE will accelerate the development and deployment of zero-emission road mobility which will deliver concrete benefits including improved quality of life, economic growth, and new business opportunities for all the EU member states. An optimised EV powertrain will significantly reduce transport emissions and tackle the issues of air quality and noise pollution in urban areas.
Discover more on HiPe:
HIPE - High Performance Power Electronics Integrations
Coordinator: VIRTUAL VEHICLE RESEARCH GMBH
Duration: 01/11/2022 - 31/10/2025
Cordis: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101056760
HiPE brings together 13 participants covering the whole value chain, to develop a new highly energy-efficient, cost- effective, modular, compact and integrated wide bandgap (WBG) power electronics solutions for the next generation of battery electric vehicles (BEV), and to facilitate a significant market penetration of WBG in the automotive sector. The project outputs will include: i) a scalable and modular family of WBG-based traction inverters and DC/DC converters with significantly improved specific cooling performance, suitable for 400V, 800V and 1200V applications, with power ratings from 50 to 250 kW, integrated into electric drives enabling drastic size and weight reductions; ii) a family of integrated WBG-based on-board chargers and DC/DC converters, with optimised innovative topologies, including use of GaN; and iii) integrated, fault-tolerant and cost-effective GaN-based power electronics for high-voltage ancillaries and chassis actuators.
The result will be an unprecedented level of functional integration, e.g., the HiPE power electronics solutions will be smart cyber-physical systems, incl. intelligent and predictive controllers to optimise performance, innovative and computationally efficient data-driven approaches to monitor the state-of-health of the relevant hardware, as well as novel digital-twin-based methodologies to tailor the component- and vehicle-level algorithms to the specific condition of the hardware installed on each individual BEV, and actively control the reliability and availability of the relevant parts. This will be achieved while preserving the expected automotive quality level without having to recur to overengineering, thanks to the innovative implementation of data-driven dependability techniques for cyber-physical systems. The extensive simulation analyses running in parallel with the design and experimental activities will further demonstrate the scalability, modularity and wider potential impact of power electronics solutions.
Discover more on RHODaS:
RHODaS - Reinventing High-performance pOwer converters for heavy-Duty electric trAnSport
Coordinator: UPC
Duration:01/05/2022 - 31/10/2025
Cordis: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101056896
Website: https://www.rhodas.eu/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RHODaS_EU
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rhodas
RHODaS develops solutions to improve powertrains for electric long-haul vehicles, such as trucks. The project aims at developing disruptive topologies of power converters using new semiconductor materials (silicon carbide and gallium nitride) as well as cutting-edge digital technologies to improve architecture efficiency, power density, reliability, cost, and sustainability. Moreover, multidisciplinary approaches of modular power electronics for Integrated Motor Drive (IMD) and eco-design considerations are addressed, to create compact solutions that can be integrated into a wide range of heavy-duty transport, enabling these electric vehicles to be more sustainable and autonomous throughout the entire lifecycle of their components. RHODaS will develop a power converter prototype and a digital twin to test the efficiency of the results achieved with standard tests and with data-driven optimization. This approach will benefit EV car manufacturers and complementary markets like urban mobility, transport, and logistics.