A Way Towards Energy Autonomous Wireless Sensing for EV Battery Management System

Electric vehicles (EV) have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and lower mobility costs, thus promoting sustainable mobility. Battery management is crucial in electric vehicles to ensure safety, maximize battery lifespan, maintain optimal performance, and improve energy efficiency. However, the complex wiring harnesses required to transport sensor data make a Battery Management System (BMS) a complex and vulnerable block in EV design. This is due to weight and cost associated with extensive wiring harnesses, high connection failures probability, challenging maintenance, and limited flexibility in battery pack configuration. Researchers and manufacturers envisage a potential solution in Wireless BMS (wBMS) to improve EV safety, reduce weight, improve scalability, and enhance reliability by eliminating complex wiring. The state-of-the-art wBMS use wireless sensors, that themselves require a battery to operate, therefore, posing an additional liability and failure threat. Luckily, energy autonomous wireless sensors can be cutting-edge technology to irradicate this vulnerability and give the wBMS designers and manufacturers with the huge flexibility to further enhance reliability, reduce maintenance, lower weight, and improve environmental sustainability by eliminating the need for sensor battery replacements. This survey intends to summarize the recent contributions and developments made in providing the solutions for wBMS in automotive applications. A comprehensive review and analysis of power consumption of common communication standards used in wBMS is also provided. The potential of battery-free RFID (UHF/NFC) sensors in realizing energy autonomous wBMS for electric vehicles has been unearthed, several use cases, commercially available solutions and their practical application in automotive industry have been discussed. Moreover, this review serves as a useful guide for industry professionals and researchers developing battery-free passive wBMS, covering current advancements in battery-free passive wireless sensor technology, technology readiness, real-world operational challenges, and future trends.