Research

Charging solutions for electromobility and corresponding charging stations are currently still characterized by excessively high costs and insufficient integrability into the dynamically changing energy system. The aim of the joint project is therefore to achieve interoperable and grid-supporting system integration and a significant reduction in costs while at the same time improving reliability and ensuring all current and future relevant functionalities, future viability, security (especially cyber security), efficiency and resource-saving long service lives.
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The share of electric commercial vehicles, for example, almost doubled in 2018 compared with 2017, but is largely attributable to the class smaller than 3.5 tons. The 3.5 to 7-ton class is currently still based almost exclusively on combustion engines. A major reason for this is the lack of technically suitable vehicles on offer, particularly from German automakers. The hurdles are the high technical requirements specific to commercial vehicles, the comparatively low unit numbers in economic terms, and the associated high development costs with the time problem of timely market launch. The approach in this research project is to enable the use of existing electric machines, e.g. from the passenger car sector, for light trucks.
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The project aims to build a diversified and intelligent charging infrastructure system for electric vehicles to ensure the operational charging of a vehicle fleet characterized by a very high density of latest generation electric vehicles. This will allow the mapping of a mobility situation as it will exist in about 2035. Interactions between a diversified charging infrastructure, advanced electric vehicles and intelligent charging management can thus be recorded, analyzed and optimized in practice at an early stage.
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Due to limited energy resources and the global growth in individual traffic, new energy-efficient and economical drive concepts are needed. At present, electric drives offer precisely these technical properties due to their high efficiency. To take advantage of this, the electric motor must be optimally designed for its application. Today's electric motors for traction drives must be optimized to their performance and material limits and meet a wide range of requirements.

The aim of the NeWwire research project is to develop and design a novel winding process for the automated production of electric motors in the high-performance range for automotive use.
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The limited range of electric vehicles and the considerable manufacturing costs of batteries demand efficient management of the stored energy in the vehicle.
As part of the joint project VerfaS, Process Optimization for Increasing the Energy Efficiency of Electric Drives, methodologies are being developed that contribute to increasing the efficiency of the electric drive train.
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The aim of the cooperation project "Research for predictive diagnosis of electrical machines in vehicle drives" is to research a scientific methodological basis for the early detection of failure modes of the electrical machine in the overall vehicle system.
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The research project Development and Optimization of Onboard Network Architectures with Consideration of High Power Consumers is carried out in the focal area of on-board energy networks.
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The thermal behavior of electrical vehicle wiring systems is being investigated as part of this project. For this purpose, a new measurement method is being developed which makes it possible to determine the real conductor and insulation temperatures of the lines in the vehicle electrical system.
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Contact faults in DC circuits can cause the affected components  (cables, plugs, etc.) or their surroundings to leave the permitted operating range (e.g. overheating) and even arc, which can cause high damage to the contact point in addition to a functional failure. Depending on the degree of fault, this can lead to the development of a smoldering fire or even an open fire.
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Within the scope of the project, a test bench for automotive vehicle electrical systems is being set up, which allows the electrical energy and signal distribution to be investigated. Within the test bench, all actuators and sensors are controlled outside their original environment by a real-time computer.
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The increasing market penetration of electromobility and the resulting growth in unit numbers mean that the material requirements for central components in electrical machines, such as magnets, and the energy efficiency of electrical machines are becoming both economically and ecologically critical, and the ability to optimize them is proving highly relevant to competition.

The aim of the KITE joint project is to develop highly efficient motor topologies for electric drive machines.
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The aim of the eBoosT joint project is to satisfy the sometimes very divergent customer requirements in the truck sector with an electric, competitive drive concept. This involves optimally combining a highly integrated drive unit designed for continuous operation with a second boost drive unit designed for peak loads.
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An important aspect for the use of electrically conductive modified plastics is their contacting. In addition to processes that produce a contact subsequently (e.g. clamping or melting contacts), there are also numerous process-integrated methods. Injection molding certainly deserves special mention here, but integration via other common primary molding, forming and joining processes is also conceivable.

­The aim of the project is to develop a model for describing the electrical contact resistance at the interface between electrically conductive modified plastics and metallic contacts, as a function of the parameters of the interface transition and the plastic surface layers, to quantify this model and to validate it in the context of realistic manufacturing processes.­
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Modern test benches for experimental validation provide extremely large, mostly time-based and usually heterogeneous amounts of data, the processing and, above all, the evaluation of which are hardly possible in an all-encompassing manner using conventional knowledge-based methods or, due to the size and complexity, not possible at all. In particular, correlations and error models that are not yet known thus elude analysis. For the use of AI methods, e.g. from the field of deep learning, this offers an extraordinarily interesting, still little researched and above all future-relevant application.
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The aim of the joint project is to design and demonstrate new on-board power supply concepts for future automated vehicles that ensure the reliability of power and signal distribution.
For safe power supply, the concept provides for predictive power management, which uses the new autonomous driving functions to predict the expected power requirements. In this way, safety-critical states are anticipated and compensated for via measures initiated ahead of time.
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Until now, standardized magnet geometries have generally been used in the development of new electric drives. The arrangement of the magnets is carried out in certain, familiar patterns, such as a stacked structure or a magnet V arrangement. The design is thus based on experience-based intuitive patterns. In order to meet all the requirements for performance, efficiency, acoustics and mechanical strength, complex iteration loops are necessary. In the arrangements known so far, the magnet material is not utilized homogeneously.
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Semi-autonomous electric vehicles for environmentally and tourism-friendly mobility

Traveling in a park with an electric vehicle, being taken to the desired destination semi-autonomously and receiving up-to-date information at the same time: That is the goal of a project at the University of Kassel funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
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The architecture of vehicle electrical systems today is largely an evolutionary process in which new or further developed vehicle electrical/electronic systems are integrated into the design concept, manufacturing concept and logistics concept of existing electrical system architectures from predecessor vehicles. Today's boundary conditions for the development of vehicle electrical system architectures require new methods in the development of vehicle electrical system architectures that consider the vehicle electrical system and electrics/electronics as a single unit and thus open the way to a global optimum of the electrical system architecture in contrast to today's methods.
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