Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Recently, e-bikes have been popular because they offer several benefits such as the convenience for riders andx000D
no carbon dioxide emission to our environment. However, the high cost and the short duration of battery packx000D
seem to be the biggest drawbacks that prevent e-bikes from widely spreading on the market. In order to reducex000D
the cost, Alizeti, our industrial partner, has successfully developed a solution to convert most existing bicyclesx000D
into a full featured e-bikes. In this solution, the powertrain system is basically based on an electric-poweredx000D
roller in contact with the tire which drives the bike by friction. The battery and the drive train are built into ax000D
compact enclosure to be fixed on a conventional rear luggage rack. Thanks to this simple configuration, thex000D
riders can easily convert their bike into a full featured e-bike at low cost. In order to improve the lifetime of thex000D
battery pack, this project will complete the development of an intelligent portable battery charger. The batteryx000D
pack of Alizeti's e-bike is a 24V/11.6Ah pack made from Li-Ion battery cells. The developed intelligentx000D
portable charger will perform with two main advantageous features. Firstly, the impedance of the battery packx000D
will be maintained at its minimum value during the charging process in order to improve significantly thex000D
charging efficiency and the lifetime of the battery. This will result in economy for the riders who will not havex000D
to pay for frequent battery pack replacement and maintenance. The second feature is that the battery pack canx000D
be charged from both AC and DC power sources with a large voltage range, going from 12V to 48V in case ofx000D
DC power supply and from 95Vrms to 265Vrms in case of AC power supply. With this feature, the developedx000D
charger can charge the e-bike battery from all popular available power sources. As a result riders will use theirx000D
e-bikes more effectively and comfortably. In addition, the developed charger has a size and weight similar tox000D
the popular netbook chargers. With these advantageous features, e-bikes can be charged easily with anx000D
intelligent manner. Hence, the completion of this project will significantly contribute to widely spread thex000D
e-bike on the road by offering users a low-cost but powerful e-bike.