SCAPE

SCAPE (SWITCHING-CELL-ARRAY-BASED POWER ELECTRONICS CONVERSION FOR FUTURE ELECTRIC VEHICLES) brings together 9 innovation-driven partners in a 4-year EU-funded endeavor to revolutionise the design and implementation of power converters for next generation electric vehicles. The ambitious project sets out to revolutionise the design of power converters for electric vehicles by building and validating a novel, standardisable, and modular design and architecture for the EVs’ powertrain coupled with an integration of advanced control systems. Moving away from traditional approaches in powering e-mobility, SCAPE aims to cater for the lack of standardization on the EV power conversion system designs across different vehicles and contribute both to a cost-reduction in the EV powertrain and to an increased performance of power electronics for NextGen electric vehicles.

SCAPE’s 3 in 1 approach to shaping an affordable and optimised EV ecosystem involves:
• a new, standardisable, modular design for EV power converters based on multilevel converter technologies.
• a highly-compact and integrated building-block implementation architecture for EV power converters through chip-embedding
technology.
• intelligent control strategies featuring prognosis and health management with an online monitoring system and a powertrain digital twin.

Models, simulations, digital twins and prototypes will help SCAPE’s team validate its approach and share project assets with the power electronics community, the EV components’ industry and all climate-sensible long-haul transport companies and vehicle drivers out there!

*This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Reasearch and Innovation Programme

Results

SCAPE’s e-powering ‘solutions’ for the EV market will enable to reduce costs for powertrain elements thanks to scale economies. SCAPE’s main player, the Switching-Cell Array (SCA) concept, merged with wide bandgap (SiC and GaN) technologies promises both modularity, thus great cost reduction in powertrain implementation, and an improved EV performance in terms of efficiency, power density, reliability, and autonomy. SCAPE’s work on advanced functionalities, such as prognosis and health management through online monitoring and digital twins, sets out to positively impact the EV user experience as well!

SCAPE will contibute to a win-win scenario starring empowered OEMs (with access to a cost-efficient and quality improved power converter production chain), happy Drivers (benefitting from more affordable and better performing zero-emission vehicles), a cleaner Planet* (a greater penetration of the sustainable EV market and an accelerated up-take and acceptance of e-mobility will lead to reduced green-house gasses emission and a competitive European e-mobility market (pursuing independence, industry leadership and reputation in EV components system and emerging technologies).

*An environmental impact assessment of the SCAPE process will also take place during the project.

ISINNOVA’s role

Leader of Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation
ISINNOVA will develop stategies and implement tools to maximise the impact of the project’s activities and results. This includes the establishment and management of external communication channels (project website, social media profliles, newsletters) and the development of primary dissemination products (visual identity, project leaflets, posters, etc.).
As part of the scientific dissemination of the project, ISINNOVA is also responsible for the organisation of Dissemination Workshops, of a Summer School to inform students, professors and researchers on project findings and will lead the organisation of the project’s final conference, ensuring high visibility for the project’s results and market exposure for SCAPE’s powertrain innovations.