On the 10th December 2013, the JTF Energy Management Working Group met at the headquarters of EnergyBus member Pironex GmbH in Rostock.
 

 
For final discussion before the publication of Version 2.0 of the CiA 454 CANopen Application Profile/EnergyBus protocol, the JTF Energy Management Working Group met on the 10th December 2013.

The original protocol came from the pen of Johannes Dörndorfer, and the objective is safe energy management with standardised interfaces.

Combining interfaces safely
With the CiA 454 CANopen Application Profile/EnergyBus Protocol, only compatible systems can become active. This means safety for the end user and also for dealers and system manufacturers.

Standardisation simplifies both maintenance and repair for cycle dealers. Hannes Neupert (EnergyBus e. V.) explains: “Today, a dealer has to use manufacturer-specific software to diagnose errors or to perform software updates on any particular drive system, and sometimes they also need to have hardware to hand in the form of adaptors. So in practice, it’s simply not possible for any one dealer to be able to help every electric bike customer.

But with EnergyBus a single error code readout becomes possible, similar to the system used on cars (there known as the OBD interface). This is in the interests of both customers and dealers. The OBD interface was made compulsory by the EU, in the interests of customers, against the wishes of the automobile industry. In the longer term system manufacturers benefit too, even those who want to market their products and services exclusively.”

Dörndorfer’s original protocol
Johannes Dörndorfer, Lead Developer and Managing Director of Ropa Engineering GmbH, is a founding member of ExtraEnergy und EnergyBus, as well as the originator of the EnergyBus Protocol. He wrote the original protocol. It came about as he was working with Hannes Neupert as part of a major battery test carried out by ExtraEnergy e. V., which ran from 2002 to 2005 in collaboration with Deutsche Post AG. “The greatest challenge was that we had fifty different batteries and fifty different chargers, and wanted to test them on the Deutsche Post vehicles. This made us realise that mis-connecting chargers and batteries is a major source of failures. And to get a grip on this problem, we developed the idea of a standard interface,” Dörndorfer explained.

CiA 454 publication
The CANopen Application Profile, on which EnergyBus is based, is available at CAN in Automation and via the EnergyBus consortium under document code CiA 454. This profile is applicable both for LEVs and for energy management systems in stationary, off-grid applications. “As soon as the decisions of the working group in Rostock have been implemented into the document, all of the document sections relevant to the charging process will be distributed within the collaborative consortium. The documents will then be made available in the member areas of the websites of CAN in Automation (www.can-cia.org) and EnergyBus (www.energybus.org)”, announced Reiner Zitzmann (CAN in Automation) at the close of the meeting.

IEC ISO Standard Interfaces
The protocol, developed jointly by EnergyBus and CAN in Automation members, will be taken as the starting point for the work of the Joint Standards Group of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Standard Organisation (ISO).

For the joint commission IEC/ISO/TC69/JPT61851-3, this work will be incorporated at the next sitting of the German national mirror committee in Frankfurt on the 14th January, and at the international session in New Dehli in India from the 27th to 31st January.

Assuming that no better suggestion is provided by other participants, in Summer 2014 an IEC/ISO pre-standard based on CANOpen 454/EnergyBus will be published. “This is an important milestone on the road to a unified charging interface, and a unified error diagnosis system for Light Electric Vehicles”, concluded Hannes Neupert (EnergyBus e. V.).

>> press release

>> www.EnergyBus.org

Text: EnergyBus e.V.
Picture: Angela Budde

14 January 2014