The objective of this program is to develop a novel hybrid energy storage system for electric vehicles. The specific objectives are to: (a) reduce the weight of the energy storage system (composed of high energy-density battery pack, ultracapacitor pack and a DC/DC converter) to less than the weight of a high power-density battery pack alone, while increasing the battery lifetime; (b) implement, develop, and validate this technology on the powertrain of a new electric car.
Intellectual Merit: The intellectual merit is in the design, optimization, power management, thermal management, and validation of the advanced energy storage technology. The underlying foundation behind the proposed research is to provide a transformative solution to overcome current limitations of the batteries, achieved by (a) a SiC based novel converter and (b) a unique decoupled power/energy management strategy to optimally control the system. The project integrates different disciplines such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and applied mathematics, thus fostering multidisciplinary collaborative research.
Broader Impacts: The broader impacts include the highest quality integrated education and research to meet the emerging workforce and educational needs of U.S. energy and transportation industry by educating talented students. It is the intention of the team to broaden the participation of female and minority students in this project through close collaboration with the Maryland LSAMP program. In addition, the team will collaborate with the Baltimore-Washington Electric Vehicle Initiative to educate a broad range of high school and college students in mid-Atlantic region in strategic field of sustainable transportation systems.
