The intention of the MotorBrain project is to develop sustainable drive train technologies and control concepts/ platforms for inherently safe and highly efficient Electric Vehicle (EV) powertrains of the 3rd Generation. The envisaged EV-Powertrain will enable significant steps ahead in terms of:

• Overall energy efficiency: The next generation EV-Powertrains shall improve energy efficiency by 20%.

• Development of novel smart and intrinsic failsafe electrical powertrain concepts: Powertrain concepts will not only focus on new highly efficient smart motor management systems and torque-dense motor concepts, furthermore intelligent integration concepts for passive components, power converters as well as new concepts for modular storage systems will be derived and verified. By exploding the benefits of higher integrated subsystems of the EV-powertrain it is expected to further enhance the efficiency and reliability of EV-Powertrains without impeding production costs. Moreover is it envisaged to strengthen the sustainability by improving recyclability and alleviating the dependency on rare-earth magnets.

• Deriving new EV architectures, sensors and microcontroller concepts/ platforms: Core aim of the MotorBrain Project is to strengthen the EV related industries by achieving technological leading positions through the development of intrinsic fail-safe powertrains and energy management systems in order to enhance the overall reliability, safety and efficiency of EVs. In particular the safety of the next Generation EV will be improved using; redundancy concepts at different subsystem levels, sensors in combination with advanced control mechanisms as well as multi-core ECU’s. Intelligence will be enhanced through embedded software in a highly distributed control system, taking into account the interaction between hardware and software within the physical environment.

The project addresses the highly challenging research on power and high voltage electronic systems beyond state of the art. Smart miniaturized systems including subsystems, system-layers and vehicle demonstrators will be derived and via the interaction of all systems they comprise the full supply chain of electric drives for EVs.