myFC Lab Story: The integration phase – from research and verification to fine calibration – fuel cells for electric bicycles.
myFC Lab Stories is non-regulatory information from myFC’s laboratory. The texts reflect the work that the company’s researchers and developers carry out in the development of the patented technology. The numbers and data in this text are not to be considered as a forecast for future revenues.
myFC is in the final phase of integrating a project carried out on behalf of a leading manufacturer of bicycle systems. The technical leader for the integration work is Pouya H. Moud, PhD, Senior Application Engineer.
Pouya H. Moud, says:
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We have achieved all the goals set by the customer and are now finishing the last details,
Pouya H. Moud’s team of a total of ten people includes experts with different specializations, each with their own niche: electronics, fuel cells, software, mechanics, and Balance of Plant.
Since June 2021, when the company received a purchase order from a Japanese manufacturer of bicycle systems, much focus for Pouya H. Moud and his team has been on developing a unique fuel cell solution, combined with a buffer battery, that is to be integrated into an electric bicycle.
“After defining the boundaries of our system, we had a discussion with all the stake holders and visualized their demands. Then we turned those demands into a list of must haves and nice to haves.”
Further action was to identify the technologies and their readiness levels as well as the availability of different required technology outside the walls of myFC. Then the team started to develop the identified technologies internally.
During the process myFC have had a continuous discussion with the costumer around detailed technical matters.
“For example, we spent a lot of time and resources discussing our fuel cell assembly and the costumer’s drive unit (DU) interface requirements, to make sure we were compliant with the requirements.”
This is a very vital part of integration, as the team is replacing a current solution in the application with myFC’s system, which means that the they need to adapt or modify myfc’s fuel cell system interface so that the two systems can work together.
The team adopted an agile approach for the development, to be able to increase the maturity level of myFC’s technology, using short design verification iterations.
“We made a detailed project plan to realize the project, and then we adapted the plan as circumstances changed.”
The integration work started by system testing in the lab in which the team ran the whole system, including the fuel cell assembly and the buffer battery. The team performed a lot of test cases based on evaluating the targeted performance of the system. This also meant spending a lot of time optimizing the regulation of the system to make the fuel cells deliver a continuous steady state power.
In the following step myFC prepared the electric bike for the integration of the FCA into the application. Thanks for staying up to date with Hydrogen Central.
“For this, we spent many hours to make sure that the mechanical assembly fit the limited available space in the application. There was also detailed electrical and communication specifications between our solution and the costumer’s drive unit, that we had to attend to.”
The goal throughout the process has been to create an application that can perform better than the original solution, which presents a few challenges along the way. For example, the bike can’t be substantially heavier, and the technology must fit inside the downtube frame of a bike, which presents obvious limitations.
The team is in a stage of fine calibrations, and Pouya H. Moud is very pleased with the results of the efforts the team has done.
“We are now physically integrating the system into a bike, including the fuel cells, Balance of Plant (BOP) and the electronics,” he says.
myFC is finalizing the last phase of the project and is getting ready to deliver the prototype to the costumer.
myFC Lab Story: The integration phase – from research and verification to fine calibration, February 10, 2022
