Battery module and battery cabinet testing

Battery module and pack testing involves very little testing of the internal chemical reactions of the individual cells. Module and pack tests typically evaluate the overall battery performance, safety, battery management systems (BMS), cooling systems, and internal heating characteristics.

These systems are designed to test battery performance, condition, aging, and safety, along with BMS communication, under realistic scenarios that are simulated by drive cycle profiles and other application-specific tests. This data is critical to the development and production of pack and module batteries.

Verifying EV battery modules requires testing for faulty connections, abnormal behavior, or early failures of the module's battery cells and battery management system (BMS). Testing includes characterizing the module's responses to temperature influences and their reciprocal electrical and thermal impact on the cells.

Diagram of battery module and pack testing in design and manufacturing. There is significantly less time available to test during production due to high throughput. Typically the system validation done on the pack level can easily take upwards of 6 minutes per unit.

Evaluating the quality of a battery module requires measuring its main electrical parameters. The Keysight EV battery module test solution provides a comprehensive environment for developing and analyzing EV batteries. The solution provides both a sink and source with 20 to 300 V, 100 to 750 A, 2 to 68 kW, and up to 12 channels for battery modules.

Standard tests include drive-cycles, peak power capability, BMS software validation, and application-specific characterization tests. The goal of testing batteries as an individual component or subsystem is to answer specific questions about the design or build. For example, how will the battery perform at different temperature levels?