SPECIAL SESSION #06

Roberta Ramilli

University of Bologna, Italy

• roberta.ramilli@unibo.it

Salvatore Dello Iacono

University of Brescia, Italy

• salvatore.delloiacono@unibs.it

Alessio De Angelis

University of Perugia, Italy

• alessio.deangelis@unipg.it

Batteries are a key technology to foster the challenging and ambitious European Green Deal for the sustainable economy of the future. Climate neutrality, resource efficiency, circular and clean economy are the main targets to achieve the overall objectives: no net emissions of greenhouse gases within 2050 and decoupling of social and economic growth from resource exploitation.

In this framework, the contribution of the Automotive sector to the shift towards the sustainable and smart mobility that is envisaged by the Green Deal plays a paramount role. A step increase of the demand and diffusion of efficient, affordable and safe battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which are essential towards a low-emission transport system, can be part of the response to this challenge, but it can be achieved only if the novel “Smart Battery” Paradigm is adopted.

More precisely, the battery, or even the single battery cell, must go beyond its traditional functionalities, and evolve into a Cyber-Physical System (CPS), autonomously capable of collecting in-operando, online (i.e., while the vehicle is on the road) multi-parameter information (e.g., besides typical electrical parameters, also the time-evolution of the electrochemical impedance spectrum, of the internal and external distributed strain and temperature, of quantities related to physical/chemical degradation phenomena, etc.), to be transduced into battery module/cell state parameters by means of suitable algorithms and predictive models implemented either locally, and/or at the Battery Management System (BMS) level, or even in the cloud. State parameters are thus exploited by the BMS control for improving the performance, safety, and lifetime of the battery; while continuously storing the history of battery cell operation into a suitably designed dataset can also contribute to the implementation of a Battery Cell Passport for smart maintenance and informed decision for possible second-life usage of the cells.

Scientific research and industrial innovation in sensor design and integration, modeling, diagnostics, communication, as well as in related characterization techniques are strongly needed in advancing the battery technology towards this new disruptive Paradigm.

Topics of interest for this Special Session include, but are not limited to:

• Smart sensors and innovative sensing strategies for batteries and cells: Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy, thermo-mechanical and chemical sensors for batteries;
• Design, implementation, and characterization battery modules/cells for automotive applications;
• Design of efficient excitation/test signals for accurate, fast, and low-noise sensing on battery cells;
• Advanced laboratory-level characterization techniques and related set-ups for batteries and cells;
• Cells and batteries aging and degradation models;
• Physics-based, data-driven and AI-assisted batteries models;
• Battery module/cell state estimators from multi-parameter sensing;
• In-operando monitoring technologies for battery cell self-healing and second-life usage;
• Fault analysis and predictive maintenance strategies;
• Innovative battery management systems (BMS) proposal, design and characterization.

Roberta Ramilli is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering of the University of Bologna, Italy. Her research focuses on advanced techniques and technologies for high-precision impedance measurements, with particular interest on battery instrumentation and measurement. Her activity includes the definition of system architectures and the experimental validation of measurement chains applied to the characterization of next-generation battery cells.

Salvatore Dello Iacono (IEEE Member) is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Brescia, Italy. He carries out research on inertial measurement systems and positioning algorithms; he is actively involved in research on sustainable light mobility, with interests in battery modeling and battery management systems. His main areas of expertise include embedded real-time signal processing on microcontrollers and DSPs, and Industrial IoT (IIoT) devices.

Alessio De Angelis (IEEE Member) is an Associate Professor with the Department of Engineering of the University of Perugia, Italy. Since 2019, he serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. His research interests include instrumentation, positioning systems, battery measurement and modeling.