Co-op Automates Critical Battery Testing at Tesla
During his co-op at Tesla, Kaden Du, E’25, electrical and computer engineering, developed an automated system to streamline the testing of analog circuits on high-voltage controller boards.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Kate Rix. Main photo: Kaden Du worked at Tesla while on co-op and helped develop a way to automate testing of critical battery components. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Northeastern student innovates testing system for safer, more reliable car batteries
For a battery-powered car to be safe, it’s critical that the power source can be disconnected if voltage levels are too high. It’s up to a tiny voltage regulator circuit to maintain consistent voltage so the battery doesn’t overheat.
But this safety protocol only works if the voltage regulators themselves function perfectly.
Last semester, when Northeastern University electrical and computer engineering student Kaden Du started his co-op at Tesla, he built a system to help make it easier to test analog circuits on the high voltage controller board, including the voltage regulators, and identify where any failure is coming from.
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Northeastern University electrical and computer engineering student Kaden Du built a system to make it easier to test analog circuits on the high-voltage controller board. Photos by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
“When you test the boards that the circuits are connected to, you have to solder onto them and attach the wiring in such a way that you can actually see what was going on,” Du says. “The test system I was designing would look at all the signals at once in order to automate this test process.”
A voltage regulator is just one of the circuits on a high-voltage controller board, which is about the size of a computer keyboard. Du’s job was to develop and evaluate tests for controller boards.
Du’s team simulated conditions to test the controller board function. Boards were placed in thermal chambers, for example, to test how they handle extreme heat or cold.
“Let’s say we have a component fail,” Du says. “I have to figure out why that happened and how we can prevent it from happening in the future.”
Read full story at Northeastern Global News