Autonomous Vehicles

IoT for E-Vehicles

E-vehicles of the future are expected to be connected at all times. This is useful for automatically locating charging stations, diagnosing faults in batteries, and alerting the driver for potentially hazardous situations. However, such technologies also have serious security risks. Hence, the SIEVE team is designing new technologies for creating secure in-vehicle CAN buses, and a secure charging infrastructure that minimizes power theft. Additionally, the team is looking at reducing the cost of placing charging stations and roadside units for e- vehicles. Along with designing solutions for security, the team is also looking at creating the first ever widely available simulated for simulating self-driving.

Battery Charging Technologies

Widespread deployment of charging stations is a bottleneck for the acceptability of Electric Vehicles (EV) in our country. One of the major factor which prevents the deployment of charging stations is lack of space. To address this issue, the main focus of our research is to develop off-board EV chargers with novel power electronic converter topologies, that will ensure high power density for the charger. The use of widebandgap devices like SiC is being investigated in power electronic converter is being investigated to make the chargers more efficient. Additionally, design and development of high frequency magnetic components (inductors and transformers) is also being undertaken for use in these converter topologies to achieve the goal of compact converters, thus making the deployment of chargers convenient.

Redox Flow Batteries

Future energy needs will likely to be met through a combination of various renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind. However, these renewable sources are intermittent in nature and thus the energy generated should be stored and utilized during demand. Various energy storage options are available with associated advantages and disadvantages, depending upon geography and need. One of the storage options that is currently showing significant potential is the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) due to its unique characteristic of independent power and energy capacity tunability, and complete discharge without damage. Further, easy replacement of electrolyte provides an additional freedom to VRFB based renewable energy storage device. Charging can be done at the site or the discharged electrolyte can be replaced by charged electrolyte without opening the stack. It is proven that VRFB would be a competent device to store renewable energy in MW scale. However, considering Indian requirements, more emphasize is being given to small and medium scale energy storage of the intermittent renewable energy. The research group is working on various challenges of the flow battery such as development of efficient electrodes, electrolyte, and battery management system etc.