Automotive
Why ultra-wideband technology will revolutionize EV battery systems
By Katia Giovanella, product marketing manager BMS at NXP A
s the electric vehicle (EV) market continues to grow, innovation in battery technology is essential. By regulating and monitoring a
battery’s operation, a battery management system (BMS) enhances performance, ensures safety and enables more efficient manufacturing. BMS solutions are also required to help meet specific legal or regulatory requirements – for example by providing information on the digital battery passport which will soon be necessary under new EU regulation.
Within EV battery packs, space is at a premium and complexity in manufacturing quickly adds costs that rapidly scaling EV businesses need to mitigate. While BMS are becoming more important to overall EV design for reliability and safety, manufacturers need BMS to be both high- performing and easy to integrate in their design and manufacturing processes. For these reasons, innovation in wireless technologies – particularly new advances in ultra-wideband (UWB) BMS for wireless communication within battery packs – are increasingly valuable to the EV industry.
Why wireless is the future of EV BMS
To understand the benefits of a wireless approach to BMS it’s worth taking a brief look at modern battery packs. A typical EV battery pack today is divided into several different modules, enabling a modular architecture that is easily scaled. Within each module, there are several cells that are closely monitored by a sensor and a battery junction box for protection. And a processor controlling the system, collecting data such as voltage, current or temperature, for example, to ensure the system is running safely and efficiently. Traditionally, cabling has been used for this purpose. However, wireless technologies are quickly making such approaches obsolete given the significant benefits offered over physical wiring.
20 February 2025
Wireless technology, of course, means less cabling within the battery pack, which in turn reduces weight and space requirements. This optimized design enables a higher energy density to be achieved within the same footprint, delivering longer EV ranges. What’s more, reliability is improved, as physical cabling degrades or becomes dislodged over time. When refurbishment is eventually required, it’s simple to just swap out a wireless module – or repurpose it if the EV is at the end of its lifecycle, increasing the sustainability of the vehicle.
Perhaps most crucially, manufacturing efficiency is improved because wiring within battery packs is extremely complex and hard to automate. Wired battery systems call for very fragile cables and connectors that need special high voltage labour for precise manual configuration, which is prone to errors. A wireless system removes such complexity and makes robotic assembly possible, streamlining manufacturing and helping businesses bring vehicles to market both faster and more cost effectively.
Understanding ultra-wideband BMS When it comes to wireless technology within a BMS, not all options are equal. There are
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strategic benefits to using UWB over other technologies, such as narrow-band wireless systems that operate in the 2.4 GHz band (for example, Bluetooth Low Energy).
UWB encodes data bits in extremely narrow pulses which result in a very wide frequency spectrum bandwidth signal. The pulse width of a UWB signal is in the order of two nanoseconds and each contains information about BMS measurements – like temperatures or voltages. These measurements are upconverted to the carrier frequency, for example approximately 8 GHz for UWB channel 9. It’s even possible to add encryption to the process to ensure security and integrity. Why, though, does this add up to a stronger option than other wireless technologies? The answer lies primarily in the battery pack environment. Battery packs, made of multiple metal enclosures, generate many reflections that cause signals to bounce around. This creates a high frequency selective fading environment. In other words, the reflected radio signals can partially cancel themselves out as they reach the receiver through multiple paths. Further, non-predictable interference from outside of the battery environment can add complexity to the system. In these environments, narrow-
band (non-UWB) systems require complex adaptive channel algorithms to untangle interference or reflections.
For UWB, narrow frequency notches in the band caused by reflections hardly impact the signal quality because the energy is harvested over a wide bandwidth. Put simply, the signal is more resilient than narrow-band alternatives within the battery pack environment, enabling robust data communication. Thanks to this robustness, UWB can support communication at 7.8 Mbps – significantly higher than many narrow-band or wired technologies.
Higher BMS performance, reduced manufacturing complexity UWB presents a significant breakthrough in battery technology. Thanks to its high performance within the challenging environment of EV battery packs, manufacturers can move beyond complex and costly wired solutions and increase performance without sacrificing reliability. The result will be longer-lasting, more efficient, safer and higher-performing battery systems within EVs – benefitting both manufacturers and end consumers alike.
https://www.nxp.com/
www.cieonline.co.uk.uk
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