Startup develops AI system to repair electric vehicle battery

Automatically identifies, repairs defects in lithium-ion batteries
The IIT Hyderabad-incubated startup PURE EV has developed an artificial intelligence-driven hardware that automates identification and repair of defects in lithium-ion batteries of electric vehicles. This next-generation technology completely does away with the requirement for customers to visit service centres to address battery defects.

PURE EV researchers have designed Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based algorithms for the system called ‘BaTRics Faraday’, which identify the defects in various series in the battery and auto heal them to the best of the electro-chemistry potential of the cells. This process is fully automated by the hardware and no manual intervention is required all the way till complete capacity restitution.

Extensive field testing of BaTRics Faraday has already been completed. This system can be used for all of the five two-wheeler models launched by PURE EV (Epluto 7g, Etrance Neo, Etrance, Egnite and Etron+). This system will be rolled out in the first quarter of 2021.

“Lithium batteries are the most critical component of electric vehicles. They contain multiple lithium cells welded together in series and parallel arrangements to meet the desired voltage and ampere-hour (Ah) capacity. In case of any defects coming to batteries in any of the cell series, it leads to significant downtime to the EV owners. Additionally, the usage behaviour pattern and Indian environmental conditions put more load on the batteries. It is, indeed, a very difficult task for battery OEM to get the defects rectified through diagnosis and replacement of defective series of cells,” said PURE EV founder Nishanth Dongari, who is also an associate professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT-Hyderabad..

“The need of the hour is to develop an intelligent hardware device which resolves battery defects through an external healing process. PURE EV has developed AI-driven hardware which carries out the diagnosis and resolution of defects in the battery through an externally-connected device to the battery. This saves precious man-hours otherwise spent in replacement of series of cells, and reduces the battery ‘turn around time’,” he added.