The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the design of Self-Aware Radio Frequency Circuits and Wireless Communication Systems that can adapt to environmental and process variations to always operate at minimum power levels possible, extending battery life. The explosive growth of portable battery operated devices has mandated design of low power circuits and systems to prolong battery life. These devices fabricated in modern nanoscale CMOS technologies suffer from severe process variation due to the reduced controllability of the fabrication process, causing yield loss. This calls for integrated low power and process tolerant design techniques, or design of systems that can adapt to its process and environment to maintain its performance while minimizing power consumption. Currently, most of the wireless circuits are designed to meet minimum quality-of-service requirements under worst-case wireless link conditions (interference, noise, multi-path effects), leading to high power consumption when the channel is better than worst-case. In this research, we develop a multi-dimensional adaptation approach for wireless transmitters and receivers that optimally trades-off power vs. performance across temporally changing operating conditions by concurrently tuning control parameters in the RF front end to lower power consumption. Tunable circuits (e.g. LNA) with built-in tuning knobs providing independent controllability of important specifications allow optimal adaptation. Process sensing using intelligent test and calibration facilitates yield improvement and the design of process tolerant environment adaptive systems. Low cost testing methodologies are developed for identification of the health of the wireless circuit/system. These are used in conjunction with tuning algorithms that tune a wireless system under process variation to meet performance specifications and recover yield loss. This testing and adaptation is performed once during the post manufacture test/tune phase to compensate for manufacturing variations. This can also be applied periodically during in field operation of a device to account for performance degradation due to ageing. Finally, process tolerant environment adaptive systems are designed.

Dans les années à venir, les secteurs du transport et du résidentiel-tertiaire vont faire l'objet de contraintes de plus en plus sévères, que ce soit au niveau de leur consommation d'énergie ou de leur émission de polluants. Dans le domaine du transport, la hausse régulière du trafic et l'augmentation du poids et de la puissance des véhicules thermiques ont été plus significatives que la baisse de consommation unitaire des moteurs, contribuant à accroître un peu plus l'empreinte énergétique et environnementale des véhicules. Dans l'habitat, la consommation d'énergie et les émissions liées se sont accru fortement du fait de la croissance des besoins en électricité spécifique, le confort et la technologie exigeant là encore davantage d'énergie que par le passé, et ce malgré une baisse des usages liés à la cuisson et au chauffage. Avec cette thèse sur le stockage de l'électricité, une pierre se voit ajoutée à l'édifice naissant des alternatives durables à un modèle énergétique en disgrâce. Plus précisément, sont étudiés dans ce mémoire les différents usages de batteries lithium-ion utilisées comme fonction de stockage d'énergie à la convergence des besoins de l'habitat solaire et du transport électrique. Derrière le terme "habitat solaire", on entend une maison particulière équipée en toiture d'une installation de panneaux photovoltaïques. Derrière le terme "transport électrique", on entend à la fois la mobilité électrique de véhicules électriques et le transport d'électricité sur le réseau. Après une présentation du cadre contextuel et des champs d'étude de la thèse, un balayage du sujet permet de dégager certains axes de recherche directement exploitables et valorisables. Concrètement, l'hypothèse de départ d'un travail centré sur le véhicule électrique est validée. L'inventaire systématique des interactions de convergence entre les pôles de l'habitat solaire et ceux du transport électrique permet ensuite d'isoler des cas concrets d'usages convergents du stockage de l'électricité qui, à moyen terme, feront référence dans le domaine énergétique. Typiquement, le cœur de thèse se focalise sur l'amélioration de l'autoconsommation de la production photovoltaïque pour les besoins des charges domestiques et du véhicule électrique. Tout au long de cette démarche, des applications concrètes au cas de la Corse sont présentées.

Pour assurer une énergie électrique de qualité et de façon permanente, il existe des systèmes électroniques d'alimentation spécifiques. Il s'agit des Alimentations Sans Interruptions (ASI). Une ASI comme tout autre système peut tomber en panne ce qui peut entrainer une perte de redondance. Cette perte induit une maintenance corrective donc une forme d'indisponibilité ce qui représente un coût. Nous proposons dans cette thèse de travailler sur deux composants parmi les plus sensibles dans les ASI à savoir les condensateurs électrolytiques et les batteries au plomb. Dans une première phase, nous présentons, les systèmes de surveillance existants pour ces deux composants en soulignant leurs principaux inconvénients. Ceci nous permet de proposer le cahier des charges à mettre en œuvre. Pour les condensateurs électrolytiques, nous détaillons les différentes étapes de caractérisation et de vieillissement ainsi que la procédure expérimentale de vieillissement standard accéléré et les résultats associés. D'autre part, nous présentons les résultats de simulation du système de surveillance et de prédiction de pannes retenu. Nous abordons la validation expérimentale en décrivant le système développé. Nous détaillons les cartes électroniques conçues, les algorithmes mis en œuvre et leurs contraintes d'implémentation respectifs pour une réalisation temps réel. Enfin, pour les batteries au plomb étanches, nous présentons les résultats de simulation du système de surveillance retenu permettant d'obtenir le SOC et le SOH. Nous détaillons la procédure expérimentale de vieillissement en cycles de charge et décharge de la batterie nécessaire pour avoir un modèle électrique simple et précis. Nous expliquons les résultats expérimentaux de vieillissement pour finir avec des propositions d'amélioration de notre système afin d'obtenir un SOH plus précis.

The world faces the unprecedented challenge of the need change to a new energy era. The introduction of distributed renewable energy and storage together with transportation electrification and deployment of electric and hybrid vehicles, allows traditional consumers to not only consume, but also to produce, or store energy. The active participation of these so called "prosumers", and their interactions may have a significant impact on the operations of the emerging smart grid. However, how these capabilities should be integrated with the overall system operation is unclear. Intelligent energy management systems give users the insight they need to make informed decisions about energy consumption. Properly implemented, intelligent energy management systems can help cut energy use, spending, and emissions. This thesis aims to develop a consumer point of view, user-friendly, intelligent energy management system that enables vehicle drivers to plan their trips, manage their battery pack and under specific circumstances, inject electricity from their plug-in vehicles to power the grid, contributing to frequency regulation.

The University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team’s participation in EcoCAR: The Next Challenge provided an unparalleled opportunity to execute advanced vehicle technology research with hands on learning and industry leading mentoring from practicing engineers in the automotive industry. This thesis investigates the optimization of the hybrid operating strategy on board the EcoCAR development vehicle. This investigation provides the framework to investigate the pros and cons of different hybrid control strategies, develop the model based design process for controls development in a student team environment and take the learning of this research and apply them to a mule development vehicle. A primary controls development model was created to simulate software controls before releasing to the vehicle level and served as a tool to evaluate and compare control strategies. The optimization routine was not directly compatible with this model and so a compromise was made to develop a simplified vehicle model in the MATLAB environment that would be useful for observing trends but realizing that the accuracy of the results may not be totally consistent with the real world vehicle. These optimization results were then used to create a new control strategy that was simulated in the original vehicle development model. This new control strategy exhibited a 15% gain in fuel economy over the best case from the literature during an Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS) drive cycle. Recommendations for future work include adding charge depletion operation to the simulation test cases and improving the accuracy of the optimization model by removing the simplifications that contributed to faster simulation time. This research has also illustrated the wide variability of drive cycles from the mildly aggressive UDDS cycle having 5 kilowatts average propulsion power to the very aggressive US06 cycle having 19 kilowatts average propulsion power and their impact on the efficiency of a particular control strategy. Understanding how to adapt or tune software for particular drive cycle or driver behaviour may lead to an interesting area of research.

The physics of transition metal oxides is controlled by the combination and competition of several degrees of freedom, in particular the charge, the spin and the orbital state of the electrons. One important parameter responsible for the physical properties is the density of charge carriers which determines the oxidization state of the transition metal ions. The central objective in this work is the study of transition metal oxides in which the charge carrier density is adjusted and controlled via lithium intercalation/deintercalation using electrochemical methods. Lithium exchange can be achieved with a high degree of accuracy by electrochemical methods. The magnetic properties of various intermediate compounds are studied. Among the materials under study the mixed valent vanadium-oxide multiwall nanotubes represent a potentially technologically relevant material for lithium-ion batteries. Upon electron doping of VOx-NTs, the data confirm a higher number of magnetic V4+ sites. Interestingly, room temperature ferromagnetism evolves after electrochemical intercalation of Li, making VOx-NTs a novel type of self-assembled nanoscaled ferromagnets. The high temperature ferromagnetism was attributed to formation of nanosize interacting ferromagnetic spin clusters around the intercalated Li ions. This behavior was established by a complex experimental study with three different local spin probe techniques, namely, electron spin resonance (ESR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and muon spin relaxation spectroscopies. Sr2CuO2Br2 was another compound studied in this work. The material exhibits CuO4 layers isostructural to the hole-doped high-Tc superconductor La2-xSr2CuO4. Electron doping is realized by Li-intercalation and superconductivity was found below 9K. Electrochemical treatment hence allows the possibility of studying the electronic phase diagram of LixSr2CuO2Br2, a new electron doped superconductor. The effect of electrochemical lithium doping on the magnetic properties was also studied in tunnel-like alpha-MnO2 nanostructures. Upon lithium intercalation, Mn4+ present in alpha-MnO2 will be reduced to Mn3+, resulting in a Mn mixed valency in this compound. The mixed valency and different possible interactions arising between magnetic spins give a complexity to the magnetic properties of doped alpha-MnO2.

In this paper, we report that various kinds of active sites on graphite surface including active hydrophilic sites markedly affect the electrochemical performance of graphite anodes for lithium ion batteries under different humidity conditions. After depositing metals such as Ag and Cu by immersing and heat-treating, these active sites on the graphite surface were removed or covered and its electrochemical performance under the high humidity conditions was markedly improved. This suggests that lithium ion batteries can be assembled under less strict conditions and that it provides a valuable direction to lower the manufacturing cost for lithium ion batteries.

Magnetic properties of powders, thin films and single crystals have been investigated using magnetometry methods. This thesis provides analysis and conclusions that are supported by the results obtained from spectroscopic and diffraction measurements as well as from theoretical calculations. First, the magnetic behavior of transition metal (TM) doped ZnO with respect to doping, growth conditions and post annealing has been studied. Our findings indicate that the magnetic behavior stems from small clusters or precipitates of the dopant, with ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic interactions. At the lowest dopant concentrations, the estimated cluster sizes are too small for high resolution imaging. Still, the clusters may be sufficiently large to generate a finite spontaneous magnetization even at room temperature and could easily be misinterpreted as an intrinsic ferromagnetic state of the TM:ZnO compound. Second, influence of lattice strain on both magnetic moment and anisotropy has been investigated for epitaxial MnAs thin films grown on GaAs substrates. The obtained magnetic moments and anisotropy values are higher than for bulk MnAs. The enhanced values are caused by highly strained local areas that have a stronger dependence on the in-plane axis strain than out-of plane axis strain. Finally, spin glass behavior in Li-layered oxides, used for battery applications, and a double perovskite material has been investigated. For both Li(NiCoMn)O2 and (Sr,La)MnWO6, a mixed-valence of one of the transition metal ions creates competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions resulting in a low temperature three-dimensional (3D) spin glass state. Additionally, Li(NiCoMn)O2 with large cationic mixing exhibits a percolating ferrimagnetic spin order in the high temperature region and coexists with a two-dimensional (2D) frustrated spin state in the mid temperature region. This is one of the rare observations where a dimensional crossover from 2D to 3D spin frustration appears in a reentrant material. / Felaktigt tryckt som Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 720

This bachelor thesis investigates what kind of battery system that is suitable for an electric driveline equipped with a mechanical fly wheel, focusing on a battery with high specific energy capacity. Basic battery theory such as the principle of an electrochemical cell, limitations and C-rate is explained as well as the different major battery systems that are available. Primary and secondary cells are discussed, including the major secondary chemistries such as lead acid, nickel cadmium (NiCd), nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium ion (Li-ion). The different types of Li-ion chemistries are investigated, explained and compared against each other as well as other battery technologies. The need for more complex protection circuitry for Li-ion batteries is included in the comparison. Request for quotations are made to battery system manufacturers and evaluated. The result of the research is that the Li-ion NMC energy cell is the best alternative, even if the cost per cell is the most expensive compared to other major technologies. Due to the budget, the LiFeMnPO4 chemistry is used in the realisation of the final system, which is scaled down with consideration to the power requirement.

Actuellement, la principale source d'énergie embarquée dans les véhicules électriques est composée de batteries Li-ion. Cette thèse fait partie des thématiques communes de travail que mène L'ESTACA en collaboration avec le L2EP. L'objectif ce projet est d'étudier l'apport d'une source hybride composée de batteries Li-ion et des supercondensateurs, sur les performances d'un véhicule électrique urbain.Dans un premier temps, une stratégie de gestion d'energie basée sur l'approche des règles déterministes a été appliquée pour montrer l'intérêt de l'association des différentes technologies de batterie Li-ion (haute puissance, haute énergie) avec le supercondensateur en fonction de l'autonomie voulue. Cette étude nous a permis de proposer une solution optimale (poids, volume, coût..) composée d'une batterie énergétique et un supercondensateur.Dans la deuxième partie, on a suivie l'évolution du vieillissement des deux de deux batteries de type haute puissance et hautes énergie dans, respectivement, les configurations mono-source et hybride. Pour réaliser cette étude, un banc de tests, destiné au cyclage et la caractérisation des systèmes de stockage, a été utilisé. Les résultats obtenus, offriront la possibilité de se prononcer sur le type de batteries Li-ion qui pourrait être le plus intéressant pour l'alimentation des véhicules électriques