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Modular Battery Exchange  

Sponsored by UCSD and M-BEAM

* Note: The final project poster, report, and executive summary can be found in the documents page under "M-BEAM Project Final Report"

Background

The Modular Battery Exchange and Active Management system (M-BEAM) was created to give the electric vehicle industry a push in a new direction. The concept behind Modular Battery exchange is similar to the concept behind a flashlight: remove the old batteries, replace with new ones. A person would simply drive up to a station, remove their depleted battery modules, and replace them with the recharged ones. The exchange system will allow for shorter "Fueling" stops at critical battery levels, and less of a need for complex charging stations, as well as mitigating and minimizing arrays.

Objectives

The initial objectives of the team was to design and implement a quick release system for the Anderson SB 50 connectors and the banana plugs connected to the modular batteries within the vehicle. In order to come up with a design to accomplish these goals it was critical to understand the forces needed to solve this problem. Thus research about the Anderson SB 50 connectors had to be done because the Anderson's required much more force to pull out when compared with that of the banana plugs. The video below presents the concept behind the design in action:

    Image of Anderson SB 50 Connectors on the left and banana plugs on the right

Another objective for the team is the installation of data acquisition system (DAQ) within the vehicle. The myRIO, shown below, was chosen by our sponsor to be the main storage unit for the collected data for headwind speed, vehicle velocity, acceleration, and the slope.

Design:

The platform design of the quick release system was designed to keep the Anderson SB 50 connectors and the banana plugs suspended off the ground and attached to the toggle lever through the hole on the platform.  But first it was important and necessary to obtain all the measurements within the system as shown in the table below:

Mounting space was one of the major considerations dealt with throughout the project due to the limited spacing available within the vehicle, as shown in the images below:

Front Battery Spacing                        Rear Battery Spacing

Another important consideration was choosing the best choice of toggle clamps. For the project two particular toggle clamps were considered:

• • • Connector platform (CAD image below)

• Anderson SB 50 stabilizers (pictured below)

• Acrylic Railings

The connector platform is piece of ¼” thick 6061 aluminum machined with a through hole to fit the toggle lever plunge, housing both the Anderson connector and banana plug, as well as the stabilizer block. The connector is the main design component and the key to the system's success. The railings are designed to add height to the toggle levers, and this added height allows the Anderson connectors to be correctly wired.  Given that the front and rear batteries in the car have different battery-to-battery dimensions between the front and rear batteries as shown earlier the system caters to two different states; a staggered state that works for the front batteries that face each other and a normal side by side spaced state for the rear batteries. Below is a video showing the final design in action:

The data acquisition has three different components used to acquire and store important data namely:

• 1. Acceleration - and consequently - incline

  2. Electrical power output

  3. Wind speed

  4. Car velocity

The first of the three components, the NI myRIO is the main hub that saves and processes the acquired data. The myRIO is also the accelerometer and incline sensor as it has a built in 3-axis accelerometer. It is set up in a vibration-dampened wood housing in the trunk of the vehicle, as shown in the two images below: