Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2023 - 41

BOTH IMAGES: PERKINS
Q&A
The 300V lithiumion
battery concept
that Perkins
displayed at Bauma
2022 is suitable for
larger excavators
and wheel loaders.
have multiple of our packs on one machine that will talk to
each other and work seamlessly between themselves to manage
their state of charge and ensure the right one is being
charged when the machine is plugged in.
The batteries will also have telematics systems on them as well
to make sure we're managing their state of health and getting
the max run time out of them, while also maximizing their life by
informing operators that maybe they're not charging them in the
best way. We also spend a lot of time thinking about the whole
lifecycle of the batteries like how we assemble them. We need to
make them robust for off-highway use, but also how we move
them through their lifecycle in terms of reman and recycling,
which is only going to become more legislated.
With these new solutions, many of your customers are going
to be working with tech that they may not be familiar with. Is
it the OEM's job to educate their customers on how to use a
machine with these new powertrains?
It's about trying to give hints. We don't want to outright tell their
customers how to use their machines, but if we can inform them
about what might improve their experience, that can only be a
positive. So that's what we use our telematics systems to try and
provide that info and pull data back. This is how we already use
the systems on our diesel engines where we try to use that information
to inform customers how to improve
their experience and give them longer
uptime. Our vision is to make the information
understandable. Let them work
with their machine without suddenly having
to become a battery expert and help
them with information that they can use.
How are you using the telematics data
to improve your products based on any
issues you're seeing in the field?
When we pull the data down from the
telematics systems, we're also able to
pull a product status report as well and
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
Perkins
continues
to refine the
hybrid-electric
powertrain and
control systems
it revealed in
2019. A 20kW
electric
motor allows
it to run in
zero-emissions
mode or in
tandem with
the engine
and the motor
generator to
support it.
turning that data into information that our engineers can use.
For example, we can look at how our engines get used, how
many hours they get run, what load factors they are running
under, the ambient temperatures they are running in, really
the whole gamut. We then feed that back into our product
development cycle.
That engine data is also used in the electrification space.
We can then say to customers, 'For your application we know
how it runs and we know you're going to use it like this, so we
think that this is the size of the battery and capacity that you
will need.' It's really about taking data and turning it into information.
We've also been working with partners to build
customized dashboards for customers. And we've really been
able to give them insights into how their machines are being
used that they weren't aware of.
" We're not just taking
an on-highway battery
and converting it. We've
designed it for the rigors
of off-highway machines. "
What's a practical example of how this data helped develop
electric powertrains?
If you ask any operator how they use their machine, they'll always
tell you that they run it at 70- to 80-percent load factor.
Then you pull data down and its 35 percent. So, if you were
going to size a battery system to work at
80-percent load factor for eight hours a
day, you'd need a trailer on the back of
whatever machine it is to carry all the
batteries. But 35 percent is a whole different
story. Being able to use that data
really helps. Also, when we look at load
factor data it includes a lot of idle time.
But an electric machine doesn't use any
power at idle other than maybe running
the radio in the cab. Using that data really
helps us understand what our customer
really needs for their application.
Matt Wolfe
February 2023 41
Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2023

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