Ensuring battery quality and efficiency is crucial to the performance and safety of electric vehicles (EVs). With this in mind, most new energy electric vehicle battery manufacturers are actively moving toward intelligent technologies, integrating motion control, visual inspection and other technologies in the early, middle and final stages of the manufacturing process .
For example, a major automotive battery manufacturer recognized that traditional manual sampling inspections are not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also tend to identify defects late in the process. This leads to the production of defective products and increased waste.
In due course, the manufacturer entrusted a systems integrator (SI) specialized in visual inspection and AI analysis to establish a tailor-made quality control mechanism. This involves real-time detection and adjustment of “key process input/output variables” (KPIV/KPOV) to prevent failure modes from affecting subsequent processes.
However, since SI specializes in the development of visual inspection software rather than the installation and maintenance of computers and peripheral equipment, they were looking for a supplier who could provide a one-stop solution including industrial computers, expansion cards and GPU cards. This supplier must offer comprehensive after-sales service to address multi-source supply challenges, such as incompatibility and troubleshooting issues. After extensive evaluation, SI decided to adopt ADLINK Technology’s complete solution, which includes an industrial PC, an image capture card and a GPU card.
Setting up a digital inspection infrastructure with IPC and image capture cards
Hsin-Chen Lin, product manager at ADLINK Technology’s Edge Computing Platform product center, focused on the battery manufacturing process, which is divided into three stages: initial, intermediate and final. The initial stage involves the “electrode production” process, which includes steps such as raw material mixing, coating, electrode pressing and cutting.
The intermediate stage is “battery cell assembly”, which involves placing the battery case by winding or stacking methods, followed by sealing by hot pressing, ultrasonic welding and laser welding. The final stage is the “activation test”, during which the battery is activated by injection of electrolytes, followed by charge and discharge tests, as well as capacity evaluation and sorting marking the final stage.
Electric vehicle battery manufacturing process
He further explained that after the three stages, the battery moves to the modularization phase, which includes bonding of components, welding of side plates, installation of harness and final testing. These steps are crucial for the assembly of the final automotive battery module.
Using ADLINK Technology’s IPC visual inspection and professional image capture card solutions for digital inspection enables real-time monitoring during these production stages. This ensures that rigorous manufacturing standards are met at every stage.
Given the complexity of the more than ten processes detailed through these steps, many critical monitoring and inspection requirements are presented. For example, early in the coating process, AI technology with Camera Link cards and line scan cameras must accurately detect coating defects and width deviations, avoiding conductivity issues and exposure materials. It ensures optimal battery charging and discharging performance.
Likewise, during the cutting process, it is essential to check the cutting accuracy of the electrode tabs. Finally, the middle stage also presents strict challenges, ensuring precise alignment between winding and stacking and mitigating safety risks related to low capacity or lithium plating. During ultrasonic and laser welding processes, it is necessary to meticulously inspect the electrode tab welds for scratches, fractures and wrinkles. AI technology plays a key role here, effectively detecting defects that traditional vision systems can overlook.
During the modularization phase, component bonding and shell welding processes also rely on advanced imaging technology and AI machine learning to inspect quality, which is crucial to prevent component misalignment and electrolyte leakage, thereby avoiding potential battery short circuit issues.
Understanding the specific inspection needs of IS, ADLINK Technology offers a complete solution based on the IMB-M47 motherboard as the heart of the industrial computer (IPC), combined with a dedicated chassis and a power supply unit (PSU), associated with PCIe- GIE74P image capture card and GPU card. This complete solution highlights the rigor and expertise of ADLINK Technology compared to most industrial control companies offering only motherboards or Box PCs.
This unique solution simplifies system configuration and accelerates the deployment process. It enables ISs to quickly and efficiently integrate visual inspection software into battery production equipment, thereby significantly improving production efficiency and product quality control.
Leading electric vehicle battery manufacturing into a new era of innovation
ADLINK technology provides comprehensive support services, enabling IT organizations to confidently resolve any issue with industrial computers, expansion cards, and other critical components. This allows ISs to focus on software development without worrying about hardware-related issues, helping automotive battery manufacturers reduce inspection time, scrap rates, and detect subtle defects. This results in reduced production costs while improving the efficiency and quality of battery production.
ADLINK solutions offering for EV battery manufacturing
Hsin-Chen Lin focused on ADLINK Technology’s latest solution, the IMB-M47 motherboard, highlighting its two significant technological advancements. He noted its superiority, achieved through the use of 12th/13th generation Intel Core processors combined with the latest memory and I/O expansion interfaces such as DDR5 and PCIe Gen5, providing significantly higher processing performance to those of commonly used 8th/9th generation processors.
It is complemented by the IMB-M47 motherboard’s ability to support at least two PCIe-GIE74P image capture cards to handle multiple complex inspection tasks. With the growing demand for visual inspection and the large volume of data generated by high-resolution line scan images, the high-performance IMB-M47 motherboard combined with PCIe-GIE74P image capture cards ensures accurate and fast inspections , making it an ideal combination.
Comprehensive expansion board solutions accelerate smart battery manufacturing
The biggest advantage of ADLINK technology in the field of “intelligent manufacturing of new energy electric vehicle battery equipment” comes from its roots in expansion boards. Whether it is image capture cards, motion control cards, DIO cards or GPU cards, ADLINK technology offers the most comprehensive and highest quality product line.
Currently, the main application is to integrate IPCs and image capture cards for visual inspection. However, in the entire automotive battery manufacturing process, from the early stages to the final stages and including equipment such as mixers, coaters, cold presses, die cutters, winding/stitching machines, etc., innovative solutions from ADLINK Technology play a vital role.
Through continuous R&D investments, ADLINK Technology systematically integrates the latest technology standards and chipsets into its industrial computing systems, thereby significantly increasing processing speed, data transfer efficiency and reliability. Additionally, ADLINK Technology’s internal expansion card solutions effectively resolve compatibility issues faced by system integrators, improving overall production efficiency.
These innovative technology solutions strengthen ADLINK Technology’s leadership in the automotive battery manufacturing sector and make it the preferred partner for automotive battery manufacturers, production equipment suppliers and system integrators.
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