ALPHACORE INC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration STTR Phase I: T3
ALPHACORE INC — STTR Phase I award from National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
- Amount
- $124,973
- Agency
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Program / Phase
- STTR · Phase I
- Topic
- T3
- Solicitation
- STTR_18_P1
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- AZ
- Period
- 2018-07-27 → 2019-08-26
Description
<p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">Alphacore Inc. will develop a high-accuracy built-in self-test (BIST) system for characterization of aging, degradation, available power and in-situ diagnosis of photovoltaic and multi-pack battery systems using low-complexity single-chip impedance spectroscopy (IS) approach. Alphacore will collaborate with Arizona State University (ASU) scientists to develop<em> a low complexity single-chip photovoltaic cell self-test and instrumentation module to achieve</em>:</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">a) In-situ health and reliability monitoring of solar panel and reporting cell status.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">b) In-situ characterization of complex impedance characteristics of solar panel or cell over extended periods of time.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">c) A periodic self-diagnostic mode to characterize the connectivity of the solar panel or cell.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">d) A digital interface that can generate immediate response to failing cells or panels and short / disconnected cells.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">e) A model to utilize state parameters including terminal voltage, load current, and PV complex impedance model for correlating the efficiency of the battery.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">Alphacore Inc. will also develop techniques to extend these approaches to detecting and monitoring Li-Ion battery packs and other charge storage and distribution systems’ health status. The IS device will provide real-time monitoring capability of solar cell and panel C-V and capacity conditions. In response to the output of this module, the safety and connectivity modifications will be made while still maintaining cell-level specific energy.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">Alphacore’s PV monitoring ASIC will be able to characterize the complex impedance of individual cells and panels from DC to 100kHz, with 11bit (0.05%) accuracy. The spectral self-test would be completed in less than 1 Secs, and will take less than 4mA of DC current during operation. By monitoring the complex impedance for a given terminal voltage and current, a comprehensive model for the aging of the PV cells will be formed and updated. </p>