Introduction to FAIR-Battery

In the FAIR-Battery project, we aim to create an open-source electrochemical battery (FAIR = Findable + Accessible + Interoperable + Reproducible). We seek to present an open-hardware platform for a versatile battery technology and make the platform radically accessible: 1- by deliberately using low cost and locally available materials suitable for local user groups, and 2- by setting up the education communities on top of the open-hardware design.

On this route, we thrive to not only provides the necessary technical details for engineering and production, but also incorporates the local constraints for actually adopting and using the technology. These constraints relate to language, availability of materials and expertise, maintenance capacity, or other locally varying conditions, which must be identified as part of the project. Our envisioned FAIR-Battery platform will track and seek to remove these constraints in each stage of the development by direct consultation with the user-groups.

FAIR-Battery strategic choices

In order to stay focused on the main goals of the FAIR-Battery project, and to not get distracted by feature-creep, a few strategic choices have been made:

  1. Different projects for different functions: Instead of trying to develop one large application that controls all test hardware, having many varieties that are designed specifically is desired.

  2. Keep it open and accessible: Try to develop with ease of access in mind, as that is a core aspect of this project.

Where to start?

There is no unique good path to browse these docs. If you want to get your hands dirty and already have and AD2 and battery testing hardware, you can consider checking the FAIR-Battery 101.

How the name was chosen

The name “FAIR-Battery” is inspired by the FAIR data project which stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. These are the principles by which the project and data it generates strive to abide by. For more information visit this link: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

Glossary of Terms

  • AD2: The Analog Discovery 2 Board made by Digilent. In this project it is used as a hardware controller, for battery testing.

  • PPS: Programmable Power Supply

  • MVC: The Model, View, Controller code structure