LG Energy Solution to begin developing battery safety diagnostics software for EVs

LG Energy Solution announced it is venturing into the battery safety diagnostics software business. With interest in the safety of EVs at an all-time high, the company reports that it has decided to explore new business opportunities and provide customer value not only in battery manufacturing but also in BMS solutions, promoting the safe use of batteries.

LG Energy Solution reports that it has technological leadership in the battery safety diagnostics sector with its BMS design capabilities and empirical battery data gathered over 20 years. With over 8,000 BMS-related patents, the company has developed a safety diagnostics software based on empirical data obtained by disassembling and analyzing more than 130,000 battery cells and 1,000 battery modules. This software has already been applied to more than 100,000 EVs, recording a detection accuracy rate of more than 90%.

LG Energy Solution’s safety diagnostics software analyzes various battery defects including:
+ Voltage drop during charging
+ Battery tab failure
+ Micro internal short circuit
+ Abnormal degradation
+ Abnormal discharge
+ Deviation in specific cell capacity
+ Excessive lithium precipitation

Until now, most battery diagnostics software solutions were based on technologies developed by predicting virtual conditions, leading to low accuracy when applied in real environments.

The new solution will be mounted on the BMS, and will provide functions that preemptively diagnose various battery abnormalities. The company reports that it is already being applied to vehicles from nine global automakers. Based on a safety diagnosis detection accuracy rate of over 90%, the software can detect and alert abnormal signs indicating potential future issues, such as thermal incidents, in advance, ensuring driver safety and peace of mind. In addition, LG Energy Solution’s software is receiving attention for its compatibility with EVs equipped with batteries from other manufacturers.

Precise diagnosis and degradation prediction with 1% range error rate:
In addition, they’ve developed a technology that precisely diagnoses and predicts battery degradation. Through this, the software can predict a battery’s future capacity and degradation based on data gathered on various information such as driving patterns. Based on LG Energy Solution’s expertise in battery electrochemistry, the software has applied a battery physics model which includes various and complex degradation mechanisms such as lithium precipitation and degradation of cathode and anode.

The software also diagnoses battery conditions more accurately by continuously upgrading its algorithms via AI computing technology. By continuously applying and supplementing battery cell information from various EVs to the algorithm, the error rate of battery degradation diagnosis has been reduced to the 1% range, top-level in the industry.

Lastly, they’re using cloud technology to analyze vast amounts of battery data in real-time, with data from a total of 12,000 vehicles analyzed as of last year. Also, BMS software optimized for SDVs – Software Defined Vehicle – is being developed to target the future mobility era, where vehicles will become lifestyle platforms. By utilizing the vehicle’s SoC – System-on-Chip – computing performance, computational capabilities can be enhanced and more sophisticated battery algorithms can be implemented. This will also unlock new battery services for customers by utilizing information obtained directly from the vehicle.