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Completed TRL 3 (started at 2, targeting 3)
In response to NASA’s S13.07 SBIR Phase I solicitation for Energy Storage for Extreme Environments, Alphacore will develop a radiation-hardened, high accuracy Battery Analog Front-End (B-AFE) Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) that can implement low-noise, high dynamic range, low-offset offset-drift Coulomb Counting (CC), high precision temperature and terminal voltage measurement embedded with Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The B-AFE ASIC will be programmable and flexible to support various energy density (>200 Wh/kg and >200 Wh/l) and battery state estimation approaches. The proposed radiation-hardened B-AFE ASIC will provide all necessary Analog-to-Digital interface and signal conditioning functions, providing several critical modeling parameters to a processing unit. The B-AFE ASIC will enable a processing unit to run various algorithms to compute and estimate a wide variety of the state of the art in State of Charge (SOC), State of Energy (SOE), State of Health (SOH), State of Power (SOP), State of Temperature (SOT), and State of Safety (SOS) estimation algorithms on an efficient computing platform, such as radiation hardened microcontrollers. The B-AFE ASIC will provide the user with various programmability and scalability options, including sensing gain, ADC dynamic range, sampling-rate, and calibration options for DC offsets, noise, filtering bandwidths. The B-AFE ASIC will enable state estimation options for various primary cell chemistries, including lithium carbon fluoride (Li-CFx), lithium manganese dioxide (Li-MnO2), lithium thionyl chloride (Li/SOCl2), and lithium sulfur dioxide (Li/SO2).
Our battery monitor will benefit outer planet surface and aerial missions including missions listed in the 2023-2032 National Academies decadal survey: outer planet missions operating at extreme low temperatures (UOP, Enceladus Orbilander); future lander and rover missions looking to use higher specific energy batteries and need battery health monitoring on icy moons and Mars (Mars Deep Time Rover); and power management needs under temperatures of -230 to +120 °C for missions to the lunar surface (Artemis).
Non-NASA applications for Alphacore’s battery monitor include space-based defense missions with small-satellites for the U.S. Space Force and missile defense. Soldier-portable battery applications, such as radio communication, electric vehicles, location trackers, and laser range finders and night-vision goggles all stand to benefit from our fast and real-time diagnostics tool.
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