#What’s a ‘digital twin’? And why do we need it for EV batteries?

Table of Contents

“#What’s a ‘digital twin’? And why do we need it for EV batteries?”

Although lithium-ion batteries have long been the focus of EV development, issues such as battery aging and safety still aren’t fully understood.

That’s mainly because current battery management systems can obtain little information from a battery, and with poor real-time capability. They also can’t store or process large amounts of data during the operation of a vehicle.

But don’t lose your hope just yet, because digital twin tech could actually be a huge game-changer.

What’s a digital twin?

Basically, a digital twin is a virtual simulation of a physical asset.

So in our case, we have an EV battery and a virtual replica of it that’s linked to its physical counterpart.

How does it work?

Simply put, what’s connecting the real battery with its twin is the transfer of data and information.

The digital twin uses sensors to receive two types of information:

Real-time operational data
Past usage data

With this information the virtual simulation can get an all-encompassing representation of the battery’s variables: usage patterns, environmental conditions, current performance, temperature, state of charge, etc.

As a result, the digital twin can produce a very accurate replica of the conditions inside the battery pack — in other words, it can mimic the battery’s behavior.

Most notably, though, the twin can analyze the historical and real-time battery data with machine learning algorithms. That way, it can make predictions about the operation of the battery pack and compute control parameters that can be fed back to the battery management system.