Vision
We are convinced that effective climate protection can only succeed with far-reaching electrification in mobility, industry, buildings and energy supplies. The storage in batteries and conversion by power electronic systems of electrical energy is a necessary prerequisite of central importance. With CARL, we will research and provide procedures and methods that make it possible to predict the reliability and service life of new materials and systems in a short time with high accuracy. In this way, we will accelerate innovation and market introduction cycles and reduce costs and conserve energy and material resources by increasing the service life.
To fulfil our vision, we operate the most modern interdisciplinary university research centre for the integrated research and development of the ageing and failure mechanisms of power electronic and electrochemical components and systems.
- Extensive testing and diagnosicts systems allow us to age and analyse several thousand battery cells simultaneously.
- State-of-the-art laboratory diagnostics and analytics allow us to look into the components and systems in-situ or after disassembly on all length scales down to the nanometre range.
- Through a model tool chain from the crystalline level to the pan-European energy supply, we enable the reconciliation between theory and modelling on the one hand and experimental results on the other. At the same time, this allows us to predict life expectancy for all applications and load profiles based on the fundamental understanding of ageing processes at the material level.
- We digitally record all data from laboratory and field measurements as well as all analysis and diagnostic systems and will be able to quantitatively represent relationships that were previously unknown to us using machine learning methods.
- We analyse and optimise reliability, service life and efficiency at system level by jointly considering electronics and battery storage systems.
- Based on our findings, we will optimise charging and operating strategies, develop on-line, on-board and cloud-based diagnostic systems for safe and reliable operation and demand-driven maintenance.
- We will achieve our goals through intensive collaboration with industry and cooperation with leading national and international research groups.
We want to be an open research centre that provides comprehensive measurement data, and publications and scientific materials for the international research community, where we have research co-operations with industry and academic institutions and where we teach students and PhDs from all over the world and benefit from their scientific curiosity and creativity.
A detailed description of our research goals and projects as well as some highlights can be found here for electrochemistry and battery technology and here for power electronic systems.