Motorcar Parts of America, Inc. recently announced its wholly owned subsidiary D&V Electronics, based in Woodbridge, Ontario, has established a strategic partnership with Montréal, Québec-based OPAL-RT, combining complementary technologies for electric motor R&D, testing and manufacturing applications.
“The partnership will leverage D&V’s expertise in advanced, high-powered automotive testing and OPAL-RT’s presence in the hardware-in-the-loop and automotive simulation markets,” said Selwyn Joffe, chairman, president and CEO.
D&V’s power amplifiers and emulators will be available with OPAL-RT’s real-time simulation – offering customers greatly increased accuracy and test capabilities. These dynamic technologies are ideal for:
• Electric/hybrid vehicles: battery packs, chargers, inverters, high-voltage DC power systems
• HIL for dynamic high-power sources or load emulation with real-time simulation
• DC microgrid testing and alternative energy systems
• Aerospace DC power systems and components
“There is tremendous interest in power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) testing due to its ability to achieve closer-to-final-context results for consumer and industrial goods, as well as its ability to achieve highly precise, repeatable tests that would otherwise be too expensive, impractical or unsafe to be performed with traditional hardware testing,” said Bill Hardy, CEO of D&V Electronics.
D&V’s and OPAL-RT’s technologies are highly complementary – providing customers the ability to utilize both technologies in combination at any stage of R&D, testing and manufacturing of electric motor inverters used in automotive and other transportation applications, and, specifically, DC powertrains and associated components.
“This collaboration enables both companies to help customers significantly decrease product development cycle times and costs, as well as improve their product lines and offerings. By combining best-in-class real-time simulation and power electronics technology, we are well-positioned to attract significant interest from customers within the transportation electric market,” Hardy said.
“Our two businesses are highly complementary in the market at the high-performance level. Together, we will decrease time-to-market — particularly for electric vehicles and renewable energy. This partnership allows us to share expertise to address greater challenges, and together it takes us from strength-to-strength in terms of addressing our customers’ needs,” said Jean Belanger, chief technology officer of OPAL-RT.
