Project: SmartBMS

SmartBMS – Smart Battery Management System and Intelligent Data Analysis in the Cell Production Process

in short

The SmartBMS project develops an intelligent battery management system combined with advanced data analytics to optimize the cell production process. By integrating smart BMS technology and Eta-Leveling directly into production and application validation, the project aims to extend battery lifetime, improve performance, and reduce production scrap through data-driven tolerance window adaptation.

Full project name: SmartBMS – Smart Battery Management System and Intelligent Data Analysis in the Cell Production Process

Funding reference: EFRE-20801440

Duration: January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2028

Funding authority: Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MWIKE)

Project management agency: Projektträger Jülich (PtJ)

Consortium lead: Fraunhofer FFB

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MAin Goals

objective 1

Validation and analysis of Eta-Leveling to identify and evaluate maximum permissible discrepancies between battery cells at laboratory scale — assessing its effectiveness across different application scenarios.

objective 2

Development of the Eta-Box — building a modular, deployable hardware solution integrating BMS and Eta-Leveling for real-system connection and validation in application environments.

objective 3

System integration and validation — connecting the Eta-Box to a real system, conducting functional tests, and analyzing lifetime, performance, and cost-saving potential, including a comparison of A-grade and B-grade cells with and without BMS.

Description

PEM Motion's Approach

PEM Motion leads two of the five work packages and contributes its expertise in battery management systems and performance analysis throughout the project:

Work Package 1 – Eta-Leveling Validation (Lead)PEM Motion leads the validation of Eta-Leveling by conducting lab tests from the perspective of users and system integrators, assessing effectiveness across various application scenarios and documenting limits and recommendations for maximum permissible cell discrepancies.

Work Package 4 – Eta-Box Development (Lead)PEM Motion leads the development of the Eta-Box, including Matlab-based software programming for a modular battery module interface, development of a deployable demonstrator with integrated Eta-Leveling, and design of the physical connection between the demonstrator and a battery module.

Lifetime & Performance Analysis (Work Package 5)PEM Motion conducts in-depth analysis of how Eta-Leveling affects system lifetime and performance during operation, and performs comparative performance assessments of A-grade cells with conventional BMS versus B-grade cells with integrated BMS.

The Project Approach

The SmartBMS project follows a two-track methodology spanning data capture and data analysis:

Production track: A-/B-graded battery cells produced at Fraunhofer FFB are read into quality assurance systems by BST, analyzed by ICONPRO's data analytics platform, and fed back into an adaptive tolerance window calibration loop.

Application validation track: A-/B-graded battery modules provided by SEINE are connected to the Eta-Box — integrating PEM Motion's BMS and BENNING's Eta-Leveling — enabling real-world data readout and lifetime/performance analysis carried out by PEM Motion.

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