Pickering Interfaces has added two PXI and two PXIe battery simulators to its line of PXI test modules. The 41-754 (PXI) and 43-754 (PXIe) battery simulators are both available in 2-channel or 4-channel versions that can supply from 1 V to 8 V, 5 A per channel. The channels are fully isolated from ground and from each other, which lets you connect them in series when you need to simulate batteries in a stacked architecture.
With all modules using PXI or PCIe instrument buses, you can add these simulators to modular test systems, thus developing a flexible, scalable, and open architecture. You can add multiple modules if you need higher voltages. Just make sure your instrument chassis can provide sufficient power and has enough cooling capacity.
Engineers designing battery-management systems can use these modules to simulate faults, including cell imbalance, cell aging, and temperature effects. You can also perform safe testing for extreme fault conditions such as overcharge and short circuits. All channels are fully isolated from ground and from each other, and the isolation barrier (1000 V channel-to-GND and 750 V channel-to-channel) lets you use these modules as a battery stack representative such as those found in Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) propulsion systems. Each channel can simulate up to 16 cells in parallel, while still providing the required 300 mA balancing current for each cell. That results in shorter development cycles, improved safety by lowering compliance voltage, and lower tests costs.
Pickering says that testing with real batteries under imbalanced or extreme conditions can be hazardous due to high voltage and risk of thermal runaway. Battery simulators eliminate these safety concerns because they emulate cells without storing energy.
Using a battery simulator lets engineers quickly switch between test conditions. Doing so cuts test time while ensuring consistent, repeatable test results because there’s no waiting for physical batteries to charge or discharge. These simulators won’t degrade over time, which provides consistent, repeatable conditions.
Engineers designing energy-storage systems (ESS) and renewables can use the 5 A battery simulator to simulate residential storage batteries, test grid-scale storage, and assess the system for compliance and safety.
Test applications include aerospace & defense, electrified aircraft, drones, and military vehicles, which all require reliable battery emulation. For industrial equipment, electrified forklift trucks, mining vehicles, robotics, and marine propulsion all require testing for BMS integration with high-power industrial batteries.
For software development and cell-balancing applications, engineers can test low-compliance voltage open-loop setups on desktops, which can be scaled up to closed-loop applications in Real-Time systems. This hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing simulates battery models alongside embedded control systems. That provides real-time testing of algorithms such as state-of-charge, state-of-health, and cell degradation.
Programming support includes drivers for LabVIEW Real-time Operating Systems, Microsoft Visual Studio (Visual Basic, Visual C++), Keysight VEE, Matlab, Simulink, and C, C++, C#, and Python.
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