An educational system for real-time monitoring and evaluation of the parameters of electric vehicles

Recent technological advances and the improvements in the battery manufacturing processes have changed the general opinion about electric vehicles and nowadays the possibility to use electric automobiles is becoming very attractive for both private customers and companies. Following this trend, the majority of the automobile manufacturing companies are now turning towards the possibility to provide extended range of models, including electrical vehicles as well. This higher demand for electric vehicles defines new challenges, which need to be researched and solved. Some of them include the development and the installation of both commercial and private charging stations, development of standards and procedures for exploitation and troubleshooting of the high power electrical systems and the batteries of the vehicles, and so on. A different set of challenges is introduced when it comes to training and educating the new generation of specialists, which will have the heavy task to integrate the electric vehicles and their support systems in the modern society. These specialists will need to have a wider set of skills about the propulsion and the power systems of the electric vehicles, as well as knowledge in mechanics, engineering, electronics, computing, programing, etc. In order to simplify the educational process for these specialists and in order to bridge the gap between these different subjects we have designed and developed a simplified system, which provides the possibility for real-time monitoring and evaluation of the parameters of the electric vehicles. This system has been introduced and experimentally tested in the University of Ruse and is mainly designed for educational purposes and not for real production or integration in commercial electrical vehicles. In the paper we provide information about the general model of the system, its components, the main parameters it is designed to monitor, as well as details about the standards and subsystems, which are needed for the transmission and reception in real-time of the data from the electric vehicles. The paper also presents real telemetry data, which is obtained by experimental tests with an entirely electrical driven vehicle - a lightweight prototype of an electric car. This electric vehicle and the presented system can be used by students for testing and analyses of advanced algorithms and models for efficient energy consumption, which will allow them to improve the travel distance of the automobile.