Testing Real Charging Processes

• AC and DC charging for real electric vehicles
• DC charging at voltages of up to 1,500 V
• Carrying out complex field tests in the laboratory with our charging station emulator, the SCALEXIO Smart Charging Power HIL EV Tester
• Simulating freely configurable charging stations in full, including grid emulation option

Task

When carrying out release tests for new electric vehicles or their individual components, manufacturers must consider the different charging stations in the respective target market. The vehicles and their onboard chargers must be able to deal with a wide range of conditions, including AC and DC charging at different voltage levels, regionally different charging communication standards, and potential failures that might occur during the charging process. This requires a flexible test system with comprehensive parameterization options.

Challenge

The communication between electric vehicles and the charging infrastructure is a key factor for reliable electromobility. To ensure failsafe and robust charging processes, manufacturers need to consider a variety of technological standards, protocols, and even potential sources of error. But testing against many different charging stations in different regions of the world drives up costs and slows down development. In the end, manufacturers still have no guarantee of full interoperability between the various charging stations and the electric vehicles because there are simply too many variations due to hardware dependencies, software versions, and even misinterpreted standards. Test systems with flexible parameterization options make it possible to manage this diversity from the field in a laboratory.

Solution

To test real electric vehicles and their charging-related components, dSPACE offers the SCALEXIO Smart Charging Power HIL EV Tester. This HIL system is a special configuration designed to emulate charging stations during testing. The emulator allows for the full simulation of freely configurable charging stations to carry out complex field tests for onboard chargers and electric vehicles in the laboratory. A special feature of the emulator is its ability to charge real electric vehicles at DC voltages of up to 1,500 V. In customer projects, the configuration can be expanded to include more or bigger power supplies and reach higher power levels.

In this use case, a real electric vehicle is charged using the SCALEXIO Smart Charging Power HIL EV Tester, which supports AC and DC charging and all common charging communication standards, such as ISO 15118, DIN SPEC 70121, IEC 61851-1, CHAdeMO, GB/T, and ChaoJi. Using the software, which is provided together with the emulator, the charging station can be configured as required and the charging process can be initiated. While charging, different charging station behaviors can be simulated and error, failure, and malfunction tests can be performed.

The SCALEXIO Smart Charging Power HIL EV Tester is equipped with the Smart Charging Solution from dSPACE, a SCALEXIO real-time system (SCALEXIO LabBox), as well as power electronics, monitoring devices, and safety components, which are typically installed in a real charging station. It also includes the DS5367 Smart Charging Plug Simulator, which provides enhanced signal manipulation and failure insertion into the communication network. The software of the emulator is based on the Smart Charging Interface Software, which includes a Simulink^® model and various predefined ControlDesk layouts for overview and configuration purposes.

In this way, our test system helps to accelerate the development process of failsafe high-voltage charging components while reducing development costs and ensuring robust charging processes.

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