Author:
Ally Winning, European Editor, PSD
Date
08/12/2025
PDF
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Joseph Notaro, Chief Revenue Officer at Dukosi
From personal mobile devices to EVs, and renewable energy generation, our dependence on batteries is only going to grow. Like any other type of equipment that we rely on, we need to look after our batteries to ensure that they are operating to their maximum performance levels for as long as possible. For battery management, sustainability is also a necessity. Currently, we are not extracting enough raw materials to fulfil our future demands for batteries, and since the extraction process itself can be environmentally damaging, extracting fewer materials means less damage is caused. Sustainability also needs to be considered for battery lifetime. After they have fulfilled their primary purpose, they could be employed in other applications, extending their usefulness. For example, in the case of EVs, the battery is considered no longer fit for use when it reaches around 80% of its initial maximum capacity. However, there are many other applications that batteries, even with a “depleted” capacity, can excel. Batteries from EVs have been successfully deployed to even out the peaks and troughs in renewable energy storage, extending their lifetime for many more years.
To meet those demands requires that we know accurate details about the condition and operation of the battery in real time, which is a more difficult task than it seems. In EVs for example, the battery cells are arranged in modules and packs. There can be thousands of individual cells in each pack. To wire them individually to the battery management system takes a lot of wiring, which adds to the complexity of the system, the cost and the weight, which in EVs equates to reducing the range. Some vehicle manufacturers choose to measure the packs at modular level, where there may be ten to twenty cells in each module. While that may reduce the amount of wiring needed, the problem with this approach is that each cell inside the pack is different and the worst case scenario has to be considered when managing safety and performance. Many designs leave an overhead to ensure the battery doesn’t overheat while charging and discharging, and only measuring the module means that the same overhead has to be used for every cell, no matter its actual condition, and a considerable amount of the capacity of each cell may never be used. Recent research by the University of Colorado suggests that could be up to 10% of the useable energy in each cell.
Edinburgh headquartered Dukosi has developed a system that is based on a similar technology to near- field communications, which only requires one single bus antenna to be used to monitor every cell in the pack. A cell monitor chip is embedded on each cell when it is manufactured, and it is used to capture cell data and transmit the status of the cell to the battery management system, allowing the user to instantly see every key metric, and allowing each cell to be treated individually, instead of being part of the overall module or pack. A secondary benefit of the technique is that each cell can have historical data stored on the chip, so the user knows of events that may affect its performance and longevity.
Joseph Notaro, Chief Revenue Officer at Dukosi explains, “It is said that it is not possible to have low cost, high performance and sustainability. That’s not true, you can have a sustainable battery that's safe, fast charging, and has high power density. Dukosi technology gets more from each cell, so less raw materials are necessary, reducing overall cost. That is a large saving when you consider that there could be up to 4.5 billion battery cells in use in the next five years. No matter what application you look at - small forklifts, EVs, buses, or energy storage systems, at the heart of every one of these applications is a cell. So why not monitor and manage a cell at the cell level?”
He continues, “Traditionally, the problem has been how to get information on the cell to the battery management system (BMS). Wiring adds weight and cost. Far field wireless systems have been attempted, but you need line of sight, and in a battery pack that is very difficult, because it also contains cooling systems, busbars, sensors etc. There are also reflections, so you could have areas where there is no signal and areas where the signal is reinforced. Often waveguides are required to counter this effect. There was a lot of hype about far-field wireless battery monitoring, but I think it is dying today. The secret sauce that Dukosi brings to the market is its C-SynQ® technology, a proprietary contactless communication protocol that moves information from the cells to the BMS in a very efficient and effective way. C-SynQ has been developed to increase the performance, safety and efficiency of battery systems.”
The Dukosi chip sits on the cell along with its antenna. The single communication bus antenna is positioned over all the cell monitor chips and runs through the pack, taking information from every cell. Each cell monitor chip integrates a high-accuracy analog front end (AFE), digital signal processing, a microcontroller, memory, a temperature sensor, and a near field transceiver. The device measures voltage and temperature directly at the cell, then the measurements are converted and conditioned by the analogue front end on-chip and then processed by the on-board MCU and DSP, before being sent via C-SynQ to the system hub chip which typically sits on the same PCB as the BMS host processor, and communicates the information via SPI to the host processor using Dukosi API. Communication is two-way, enabling the BMS to write to the chip memory. Unlike wired monitoring system, where each module is connected by wires of different lengths, Dukosi’s C-SynQ protocol and single bus antenna minimizes parasitics and ensures that consistent results are achieved. Balancing is managed locally at the cell level. The system also isolates the high voltage and low voltage circuits as there is no direct connection between the BMS and cell, making the design safer. C-SynQ uses a star topology, allowing synchronous data capture, meaning a snapshot of the state of every cell is taken at exactly the same time. That higher accuracy and synchronous measurement enables more accurate State-of-Charge estimations, allowing more energy to be extracted.
Speaking of other benefits of the approach, Notaro says, “It is an easy system to integrate. It only requires the welding of the bus bars. You don't need PCBs, wiring, isolators, SPI communications etc. We have calculated that for a standard battery pack, up to ten times fewer components are required, and that reduction also adds to the reliability of the system, because the vibrations in a vehicle stress mechanical connections. The technique is very scalable, and that could allow automated manufacturing for battery packs, as all of the manual activities in the manufacturing line are eliminated.” He continues, “It can also help with quality control. The cell memory contains details, such as the cell chemistry, where it was produced, and the unique ID, other relevant information can include the highest and lowest temperature over its lifetime. Since it is directly on the cell, it doesn’t require a BMS to perform the monitoring during storage or shipping. For example, the cell could be in a container on a ship where it sees a temperature rise to 57oC. That can be stored for the life of the cell. If it is a potentially dangerous or defective cell, that can be seen before mounting and the cell returned to the manufacturer.”
The Dukosi technique can also be used for analysis and preventative maintenance. Notaro concludes by saying, “If you look at how much data we have available, when it is uploaded to the cloud via the BMS, analysis and outlier detection can be performed to detect cells that are starting to fail. For example, if a cell tells me its at 23oC, and every cell around it is at 21oC, I can see that it is potentially not a good cell, and can look into the cause. Furthermore, AI will allow smart analysis. I can analyze 10,000 vehicles in the field, and if position five is always a little bit higher temperature, then that’s possibly due to the mechanical design of the pack. If it is only seen in a single vehicle, then I can say, next time that vehicle comes in for a service, let's check the battery.”
