Seed Funding VUB - University Warwick – John Lataire

This initiative will establish a focused research partnership between the Department of Fundamental Electricity and Instrumentation (ELEC) at VUB and Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick on battery modelling for battery management systems. The strategic focus is on a scientific and practical problem: battery management systems require models that are fast enough for real-time use, but still reliable when batteries age, temperatures vary, and operating conditions change. High-fidelity physics-based battery models capture the exact underlying mechanisms, but they are too computationally heavy for embedded use. Simpler, reduced, or data driven models are easier to deploy, but they can lose robustness outside the conditions in which they were developed. The seed fund will support a joint ELEC-WMG pilot to address this gap. ELEC brings expertise in system identification, structured modelling, and validation methodology, while WMG brings expertise in battery modelling, hybrid AI-based methods, and battery management systems applications. Together, the teams will define a shared benchmark problem, run a focused pilot study, and test a route from high-fidelity battery physics to reduced and predictive models suited to later battery estimation and monitoring tasks. The strategic purpose of the seed project is therefore twofold: 1) to generate an initial joint technical basis for future research, and 2) to build a durable ELEC WMG collaboration that can support larger external funding applications.