Marelli has expanded its range of battery management technologies for electric vehicles with the launch of its new Wireless Distributed Battery Management System (wBMS). The company claims that this new wBMS eliminates the wired physical connections typically needed in other battery management systems.
As claimed by the company, the solution eliminates the need for daisy-chain communication and wiring by using wireless technology to enable communication between batteries and the control unit. Compared to previous wired distributed solutions, the new wBMS developed by the company reduces the wiring harness by 90%. In particular, the wBMS reduces complexity in the assembly and grants more flexibility for battery module placement.
As per Marelli’s official statement, the reduced weight due to connector removal allows for more energy efficiency, thus increasing the driving range of the vehicle with the same charge. The solution also opens up room in the battery pack to allow larger batteries to fit, guaranteeing versatility, scalability, and optimisation; ultimately, larger batteries also translate to enhanced power performance and extended vehicle range under the right circumstances.
Dr Razvan Panati, Head of Power Electronics Technology, Marelli’s Vehicle Electrification Division, said, “Marelli designed both the wBMS and the Wired BMS with identical base architectures, supported by two different ways of communication and interfaces. In that way our technology can be applied across multiple vehicle platforms with minimal change.”
The company will start selling the solution starting from the second quarter of 2022. The same will be available to support customer launches by 2024.