As material chemistries, cell designs, and manufacturing techniques evolve rapidly, creating a digital twin of both the battery product and production process has become essential. (Image: AdobeStock)

From initial design to end-of-life recycling, digitalization is transforming every stage of battery development. As material chemistries, cell designs, and manufacturing techniques evolve rapidly, creating a digital twin of both the battery product and production process has become essential. Yet, for many battery OEMs, especially those racing to scale operations and meet rising market demand, adopting digital tools can feel overwhelming. In this Tech Briefs interview, Puneet Sinha, Senior Director and Global Head of the Battery Industry at Siemens Digital Industries Software, discusses the emerging battery technology trends and how digital transformation is reshaping the industry.

With more than 15 years of industrial experience in battery and electric vehicles go to market strategy, product development, and taking pre-revenue startup to successful exit, Sinha currently heads strategy and cross-functional growth focus for batteries at Siemens. Prior to joining Siemens, he has worked at General Motors where he led global R&D teams to solve a wide range of issues with fuel cells and battery electric vehicles and at Saft, a Li-ion battery manufacturer. Sinha holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, has authored more than 20 journal articles, and has been awarded seven patents on battery and fuel cell system design and operational strategies.

Tech Briefs: The battery market has ballooned in the past several decades and is expected to continue increasing in the next five years. What’s propelling the industry forward?

Puneet Sinha: When I started working in the battery industry, I still remember around the year 2009, a battery cell was costing around $1,000 per kW/hour. So, thinking of a 60-80 kW/hour battery was unimaginable because you could do the math and know that the battery price would be higher than the cost of a car. That cost has come down today to less than $100 per kW/hour. That’s just one representation of how fast the battery industry has progressed through technology innovations and large-scale manufacturing. I don't see that curve stopping.

In addition to the price, the energy density of batteries has increased almost three times in the last 15-20 years. There have been a lot of innovations at the material level, as well as in how the cells need to be designed and the battery pack needs to be put together. So, that is a testament to all the companies and teams who have been working in this. I believe that this will continue at a rapid pace because of the demand for EVs growing significantly. That continues to drive a lot of innovations on how batteries need to have high-energy density, need fast charging, as well as being safer and cheaper, so that they become an even bigger part of our mobility ecosystem.

Puneet Sinha, Senior Director and Global Head of the Battery Industry, Siemens Digital Industries Software.

In addition, another thing that is exciting for the battery ecosystem is the booming demand for battery energy storage. All the data centers in the future will need battery energy storage. Battery energy storage is a rapidly growing application that is also driving a lot of innovations like new chemistries. Sodium ion, for example, has matured very rapidly in the last few years, already approaching early-stage commercialization. Not only are all these applications driving demand for innovation at the chemistry level, but also how those cells need to be designed, how they need to be put together, and how the battery management system needs to be more accurate and advanced.

Tech Briefs: To address the market demands and industry challenges, digitalization offers a solution. From design to production to recycling, digitalization is becoming an important part of every aspect of battery development. What are some of the strategic approaches Siemens is taking to digitally transform the battery industry?

Sinha: Battery manufacturing is very similar to cake baking, the process is similar — you mix the cake mixture, spread it, and then put it in an oven. Those steps are similar for battery manufacturing, but just like in cake baking, because you and I have the same recipe, it is highly likely that your cake will have a better quality than if I use the same recipe and bake a cake. That’s driven by experience.

The battery world has largely been an experience-driven industry, especially when it comes to manufacturing. The new companies that are emerging don't have the luxury to optimize their process by trial and error. The companies who have been at this for 15-20 years, have perfected and optimized their processes through experience. Even for the companies who have perfected current systems, their current processes may not scale as the materials, the chemistry, and the technology changes, or as they scale their operation in different countries.

So, when you look at that landscape, companies are increasingly seeing that they need to have a more data-driven approach to guide them on how they need to innovate, manufacture, and adjust their processes. That is at center of why industry needs digital transformation — how companies can explore and innovate, not by trial and error, but by leveraging physics in the digital world. Then you take that optimization, exploration, and innovation to the real world in a seamless way, bringing the digital and physical worlds together. That’s where Siemens’ focus is so that we can help companies accelerate their path of getting to the next stage of their battery journey.

Tech Briefs: A common thread across the general sessions at Realize Live has been artificial intelligence. How do you envision AI-driven digital transformation for battery design and development?

Sinha: Artificial intelligence is extremely critical. We are putting a lot of investment into what we call industrial AI, which is trained on the modalities of engineering and manufacturing. AI is an intrinsic part of our digital twin. We are bringing those capabilities to help our customers be more productive. So, for example, in a vehicle program, you need to have certain requirements on what your pack needs to look like for the mission profile of the vehicle, then the engineers do their design. But before the design is frozen, it needs to go through a lot of validation to meet all the requirements such as safety performance, aging, etc. That is challenging not only from the prototyping perspective, but also from the simulation perspective. A lot of those simulations need to be very fast and computationally effective.

There has always been the challenge of high-fidelity information that exists at the 3D simulation level, losing information when you transform it into a 1D system — what information can be lost and how you train that? So far,3D to 1D simulation workflow has been time-consuming. Leveraging AI and machine learning, we are bringing neural network capabilities to our systems. But with any AI, the thing is, you have to train it. You need to have enough data to train AI in the correct way and to do that that, we empower customers to use 3D simulation results as synthetic data to train the neural networks. That creates a lot more data for all kinds of conditions. Those simulations are accurate, tested, and validated, so that the data will not drive hallucination. We have empowered customers to train the AI models with real data that they are collecting, and also synthetic data, and then bringing it into the system simulation. That is an example of how shortening the time and increasing the engineering efficiency of validating a battery pack, has transformed a process that was taking a few hours, into something that can be done in a matter of seconds.

Tech Briefs: Digitalization can be a daunting endeavor. What advice do you have for battery OEMs beginning their digital transformation journey?

Sinha: People often think that just because they have collected data and done some simulations, their digital transformation is done, which is not the case. There are five stages of the digital transformation journey. It starts with Configuration — how you collect and configure the data. That allows you to move to the second stage — Connect — which is where you are connecting all the domains by doing simulations across the different domains and breaking silos. The third stage is what we call Automate, which is automating the mundane and bringing AI to it. But also, to automate at the level of connecting the digital with the physical: IT-OT integration. These three are the foundation.

Once you have done the hard work on these three stages, then comes the real power — the fourth stage, which we call Generate. This is the stage where with the power of AI and comprehensive digital twins, you ask: How can I be more predictive? That’s where you start to find solutions for how to improve the manufacturing quality, making sure the battery is going to be safe when it goes into the real world. And the fifth stage is Optimize: Do you really need to wait for a problem to happen before you solve it? Can we prognosticate issues? So, feed that back into what we are learning with the usage of the battery in the real world to improve manufacturing or engineering.

Digital transformation is a continuous journey. With different customers, we are in different stages of their journey. We are evolving with them and solving their problems. We continue to see the value of when customers are seeing digitalization as a journey and building it rather than saying, “Just because I have simulation, PLM, or MES, I'm done.”

For more information, visit www.sw.siemens.com/en-US/  .

Topics:
Design Electronics RF & Microwave Electronics Transmitters/Receivers

More From SAE Media Group