A Workshop-Centered Battery Exchange System for Electric Vehicles

This paper presents an approach for a workshop-centered battery exchange system for electric vehicles. Easy retrofitting of the energy storage devices of electric vehicles and the need for adequate tools to handle and maintain the used heavy energy storage devices are major reasons for this work. After a brief overview of predicted numbers of future vehicles and the resulting necessity to develop tools for workshops to be able to handle all of these cars, the embedding of the presented approach within its project framework Fraunhofer System Research for Electromobility (FSEM) is shown. Following steps are the analysis of a battery exchange process for electrical vehicles in general and the Fraunhofer Electromobility Concept Car 0 Frecc0 in particular. After the estimation of an appropriate level of automation a demonstrator for a proof of concept is realized and presented. Hereby the two components of such a system, the generic battery exchange system and a series-specific exchange tool are explained. Finally the current results are presented.