By ATN Editorial Team
Summary: Ricardo has secured UK Government funding to design a scalable modular battery system under its Advanced Modular Battery Systems (AMBERS) project, backed by £972k from the Battery Innovation Programme and matched by £940k from consortium partners. The aim is a baseline pack that can be bought off the shelf for automotive, aerospace, off-highway and defence use.
Key engineering takeaway: The modular battery system is built from repeating blocks of 21700 power cells with integrated water-glycol cooling, configurable in series and parallel to hit different current and voltage targets. Ricardo quotes a baseline pack power density of 2.6 kW/L and energy density of 220 Wh/L, paired with a wireless battery management system and AI-based estimation of state of charge, state of health, DC internal resistance, remaining useful life and a thermal runaway index.
Why it matters: A pre-validated modular battery system lets vehicle makers buy a baseline pack, or pay only for limited customisation, rather than funding bespoke pack development from scratch. With cells from Volklec and pack build by Hyperbat in Coventry, AMBERS is also a test of whether a sovereign UK battery supply chain can reach production.
Ricardo, a world-leading engineering and manufacturing consultancy, has secured funding to design and develop a next-generation Advanced Modular Battery Systems (AMBERS). Bringing together leading UK capabilities across cell supply, systems engineering, and pack manufacturing to accelerate time to market of scalable, high-power battery platforms for use in automotive, aerospace, off-highway, and defence applications, with the ultimate goal of strengthening sovereign supply to UK customers.
The AMBERS project was awarded through the Battery Innovation Programme, a £452 million UK Government-funded programme delivered by Innovate UK and supported by the Department for Business and Trade as part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy.
Inside The AMBERS Modular Battery System
The battery pack will be designed using modular building blocks comprising an array of cells with integrated water-glycol cooling. The design will use 21700 power cells that can be configured in predefined patterns of series and parallel cells to achieve multiple platform requirements of current and voltage.
The AMBERS battery baseline design pack is planned to achieve a pack power density of 2.6kW/L together with a pack energy density of 220Wh/L making it one of the best performance packs in the market. At the end of the project, the scalable battery packs will be available off the shelf for vehicle manufacturers.
A UK Consortium Targeting Sovereign Supply
As part of the project, Ricardo is leading a consortium of partners, including Volklec and Hyperbat, for the development and manufacture of the battery pack, with the ultimate goal of producing the product in the UK for local and international markets. Volklec, the UK-based battery cell manufacturer, will supply high-power 21700 cells for integration into the AMBERS battery system, supporting the project’s objective of developing a sovereign UK battery supply chain. Hyperbat, a Unipart business, will manufacture the battery packs at its Coventry site.
This new product offering will expand our portfolio of high-performance powertrains and bring to market a range of advanced technologies that Ricardo has been developing in recent years. By providing a scalable architecture, customers will no longer have to invest millions of pounds in development. They will be able to purchase the baseline battery pack design developed under project AMBERS or only spend a smaller amount in customisation based on the AMBERS architecture. This will accelerate platform development and deployment to customers, and allow businesses to support British-made battery technology.
Temoc Rodriguez, Ricardo’s Global Technical Expert in Electric Propulsion Systems
Ricardo will bring several innovations into the battery’s design, including advanced cooling architecture that enables higher discharge rates, wireless BMS, and artificial intelligence estimation of State of Charge, State of Health, DC Internal Resistance, Remaining Useful Life, and thermal runaway index.
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