Project description
Driving smart cyber-physical systems
The EU-funded HiPE project is developing energy-efficient, cost-effective, modular, compact and integrated wide band gap (WBG) power electronics for next-generation battery electric vehicles. The aim is to facilitate a more significant market penetration of WBG in the automotive sector. Project outputs will include: i) a scalable and modular family of WBG-based traction inverters with significantly improved specific cooling performance for 400 - 1 200 V applications; ii) bi-directional OBC and DC/DC converters with the use of gallium nitride (GaN); and iii) integrated, fault-tolerant and cost-effective GaN-based power electronics for HV ancillaries and chassis actuators. Comprehensive simulation analysis and digital-twin modelling (e.g. pin fin or immersion cooling, machine-learning and predictive control) are planned. Final testing of use cases on the bench will demonstrate targeted performance and efficiency.
Objective
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.
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Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
8010 Graz
Austria
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.