Powerful Real-Time Measurement with FuelCon Test Equipment

Testing, evaluating, validating and comparing fuel cells and batteries constitutes a complex process in developmental work. Depending on the characteristics of the test item, both electric and procedural influences are called into action. Thus, highly diverse scenarios and conditions can be created. Besides a high accuracy concerning actuating parameters and measuring data, especially the speed of the measuring data logging and processing is a highly relevant factor, which is usually realized involving a “real-time level”.

A real time data transfer is essential for specific test runs, in order to be able to display the dynamic behavior, the data processing and logging realistically and consequently obtain exploitable results. Particularly in the automotive sector some applications require a reaction time of less than a millisecond. This is the case, for example, for the realization of driving cycles in an automated test run where highly dynamic changes happen in real-time and thus depend on a fast, real-time capable transfer. For battery applications, a real-time capability plays a major role in the residual bus simulation, since fast responses are relevant here as well. Basically, a defined reaction behavior and defined cycle times induce the application of the real-time level.

FuelCon test stations of the evaluator series certainly satisfy these requirements and support communication in real-time. For this purpose, FuelCon puts emphasis on a reliable communication concept at which test runs take place as a sequence in real-time on a TrueData-Controller. If there are several TrueData-Controllers involved, they communicate with each other using the TDX real-time protocol. Both the processing of test runs and the tag logging can thus be realized in a reaction time of less than a millisecond. Every real-time capable measuring point thereby needs to be reachable through a TrueData-Controller, in order to communicate using the TDX protocol. The data acquisition takes place locally on the controller, whereby every tag obtains a timestamp in real time and is transferred to the SQL database on the TestWork Server subsequently.

A constantly fast and deterministic data acquisition and processing is possible thanks to this architecture, which further ensures the process monitoring and consequently a potential error response through the FuelCon Alarming in real-time. TestWork features like the event processing, the sequencer or the recorder develop their full potential on the real-time level and thereby support applications like driving cycles or residual bus simulation.

The additional employment of the TestWork event processing provides a notable added value to the test station operator, since a very individual setting is possible and thus test runs can be planned even more detailed and controlled event-dependently. The automation can be created easily and flexible in conjunction with the TestWork sequencer without the need to lower the standards of the realization in real time. Customers can thereby benefit from the significant experience of our FuelCon engineers and moreover access a large test library.