{"id":14340,"date":"2014-12-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dmcinfo.com\/our-work\/nasa-battery-simulation-system\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T14:39:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:39:48","slug":"nasa-battery-simulation-system","status":"publish","type":"our_work","link":"https:\/\/www.dmcinfo.com\/our-work\/nasa-battery-simulation-system\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Battery Simulation System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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DMC analyzed and assessed NASA’s requirements and goals for their BMS testing application and designed a customized Battery Simulator System to directly satisfy these needs. The resultant system is capable of providing a total of 108 simulated cell voltage channels and 50 simulated resistive temperature sensor channels. All of these channels are software-controllable and dynamically adjustable across the realistic operating ranges for these BMS input signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extensive details on the design and capabilities of this Battery Simulator System are available within this Battery Simulator System White Paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programmable and Open Source<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA wished to have in-house LabVIEW developers program the specific test processes to be used for validating their BMS designs. To accommodate this, DMC delivered a complete set of open-source driver libraries for all Battery Simulator System hardware modules so that developers on NASA’s team could perform effective high-level programming of the desired testing procedures. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manual Mode Operation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To supplement these driver libraries and allow basic system operation while NASA’s developers programmed a top-level test application, DMC also delivered a complete Manual Mode application. This software package provided the NASA team with full on-demand manual control of Battery Simulator System functionalities through a variety of UI screens while providing detailed feedback on system activities through comprehensive system status displays\/diagrams.
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Automatic System Self-Checks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BMS Test System software also included a variety of automated \u201cself-test\u201d diagnostic routines. These self-diagnostic functions are available to run from within the Manual Mode application described previously.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The design of the Cell Voltage and Current Measurement Module is such that it serves not only as a powerful measurement tool for evaluating BMS performance, but also as a powerful tool for evaluating its own performance and the performance of other test stand sub-modules like the Cell Simulator and Temperature Sensor Simulator modules. Thus, by leveraging the Battery Simulator System’s inherent connection multiplexing and high-accuracy DMM measurement capabilities, these diagnostic routines make it possible to evaluate\/verify the basic functionality and performance of the primary test system sub-modules. These diagnostic routines include the ability to perform a DMM-based pseudo-calibration of the Pickering Cell Simulator modules by storing a calibration offset to apply to each voltage output set point based on DMM-based feedback on the expected versus actual output voltage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about DMC’s battery pack and BMS test systems expertise.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DMC analyzed and assessed NASA’s requirements and goals for their BMS testing application and designed a customized Battery Simulator System to directly satisfy these needs. The resultant system is capable of providing a total of 108 simulated cell voltage channels and 50 simulated resistive temperature sensor channels. All of these channels are software-controllable and dynamically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37902,"template":"","meta":{"customer":"NASA","summary":"DMC leveraged our established Battery Management System (BMS) Testing Platform to deliver an automated Battery Simulator System to a NASA research group. NASA needed this system to facilitate development of highly specialized battery devices. These battery systems were designed to provide mobile power for advanced electromechanical systems such as Robonaut 2, a dexterous humanoid robot created to perform a wide range of tasks to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.\r\n\r\nThe Battery Simulator System delivered by DMC provides the ability to test BMS devices using a Hardware in the Loop (HiL) testing approach. This HiL testing is performed before those devices are fully incorporated into the large battery packs they are designed to monitor and manage. The system provides software-controlled simulated signals for all input sensors connected to the BMS, and provides the ability measure relevant outputs and responses from the BMS. This makes it possible to perform fully automated testing and validation of BMS functionality across any realistic range of input conditions the device may encounter in field operation.","description":"","customer_benefits":"