In this article, we break down tier 3 of The ACE Protocol, Drive. Learn more about how we can help you determine what your battery cell will do under your load, in your thermal environment, over your expected service window.
Standard characterization tells you what a cell can do in general. It does not tell you what it will do under your load, in your thermal environment, over your expected service window. In the ACE Protocol, Drive is where the cell meets the application.
The purpose is straightforward: subject the cell to the duty cycle and thermal conditions it will actually face, and find out whether the models and parameters from Flash hold up — or where they need to be corrected.
Customer-Specific Load Profiles
Drive testing is built around whatever profile the application demands:
– Customer-supplied drive cycles recorded from real hardware — vehicle telemetry, grid demand logs, tool usage data.
– Standardized profiles (WLTC, US06, UDDS, IEC duty cycles) when regulatory or benchmarking context is needed.
– Synthetic duty cycles constructed from application specifications when field data is not yet available.
The profile defines the test. There is no default cycle — if the cell will see pulsed high-rate discharge with intermittent regenerative events, that is what we run.
Thermal Simulation
Real applications do not operate at a constant 25 °C. Drive testing reproduces application-relevant thermal conditions using the method that best matches the use case:
– Climate chambers for ambient temperature profiles and environmental extremes.
– Liquid coolant loops for replicating pack-level thermal management behavior.
– High-power Peltier-based cell temperature control for precise, fast-responding thermal boundary conditions directly at the cell surface.
This means we can simulate not just a temperature setpoint but a dynamic thermal profile — cold starts, heat soak, cooling system response — alongside the electrical load.
Acculon Labs’ ACE Protocol can rapidly help you identify the right cell for your application in a matter of weeks, not months.
Learn more about how we can help you with your battery testing needs!
Validation and Model Feedback
Drive testing serves two roles in the ACE Protocol:
Validation: Confirming that the cell performs as the Flash parameterization predicts under realistic loading. Where the model diverges from measured behavior — voltage response, thermal rise, capacity delivered at rate — those gaps are identified and quantified.
Model update: Drive data feeds back into the parameterization from Flash, refining resistance maps, thermal models, and efficiency curves with application-specific operating points that the standard test matrix may not have covered.
The scope is flexible. A short validation campaign may be sufficient to confirm cell selection. A longer cycling campaign under the application profile can deliver degradation data and lifetime projections. The test plan is sized to the decision it needs to support.
Closing the Loop
Drive is where the three stages of the ACE Protocol converge:
– Teardown established the physical baseline — dimensions, construction, materials.
– Flash produced the electro-thermal model parameters from optimized lab sequences.
– Drive tests those parameters against the real operating environment and closes the gap between characterization data and field performance.
The Output
The deliverable is a validated performance record under your duty cycle and thermal conditions: measured vs. predicted voltage and temperature response, energy throughput, efficiency, and — where the campaign scope includes it — capacity fade and resistance growth over cycling. Combined with the Teardown and Flash datasets, it gives you a complete, application-grounded picture of the cell before it reaches your product.