Battery innovation is accelerating—from silicon-anode lithium-ion and solid-state to sodium-ion, high-voltage architectures and gigawatt-hour-scale energy storage. But as the industry races to develop what comes next, Keysight Technologies is highlighting a challenge that could prove just as critical as the chemistry itself: how do we validate that a battery will perform safely, reliably and predictably in the real world?
For Keysight Technologies, battery testing is no longer simply a final checkpoint before commercialisation. As battery systems become increasingly complex, validation must move upstream into the design process, combining high-precision electrical, thermal, mechanical and electrochemical measurements with real-world operating conditions, advanced characterisation and increasingly sophisticated data analysis. The challenge becomes even greater at the pack and system level, where fast charging, uneven ageing, thermal behaviour, BMS interaction and high-voltage architectures converge.
To explore how this testing landscape is evolving, Shweta Kumari, Sub-Editor, The Battery Magazine, engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with Teja Addala, Automotive Solutions Expert, Keysight Technologies, examining the forces reshaping battery validation across automotive and energy-storage applications.
As battery technology advances towards 2035, the question is no longer simply how fast we can build better batteries, but how rigorously we can prove that they are better.Let’s delve into the interview to explore why the future of battery innovation may depend as much on the science of validation as on the breakthrough inside the cell.
As battery technologies advance from lithium-ion to next-generation chemistries, how must testing methodologies evolve to accurately evaluate performance, safety, and long-term reliability?
Next generation chemistries tend to be more application specific with no true successor to lithium-ion. Advancements in Silicon-anode Li-ion, solid-state, and sodium-ion batteries respectively enhance performance, safety, and cost, with sustainability as a shared driver. As the ecosystem shifts toward alternate chemistries, new challenges emerge, but the core focus remains on performance for faster charging, long-term reliability (aging) for warranty, and uncompromised safety.
Testing must move upstream into the design phase, supported by in-house test facilities capable of conducting advanced electrical, thermal, mechanical and structural analysis tailored to specific battery chemistries. These activities should be led by experts with a deep understanding of the underlying physics, enabling them to identify, interpret, and resolve failure mechanisms. Testing methodologies must also evolve beyond standard and standards-compliant protocols (ISO, DIN, EN, SAE, and UN) to incorporate real-world drive cycles and charging profiles, complemented by periodic in-situ Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. Such approaches should emphasise high-precision measurements and predictive modelling to generate actionable insights, prioritise critical tests, and accelerate the delivery of meaningful datasets to designers, while continuously monitoring cell degradation, internal electrochemical behaviour, and state of health through EIS.
Testing is no longer a downstream checkpoint; it’s the force that drives innovation. As testing scales, there is an increasing need to efficiently manage and derive insights from vast volumes of data. Choosing lab operations software that offers data integrity and traceability functionality is one way of managing high volumes of test data.
Keysight’s PathWave lab operations software for battery tests is one example of such a solution.
Battery innovation often focuses on chemistry breakthroughs, yet validation remains one of the biggest bottlenecks. What are the most significant testing challenges currently facing battery developers worldwide?
Battery chemistry is evolving rapidly, and technological breakthroughs are being achieved at an unprecedented pace. Test standards are largely chemistry-agnostic as they provide a robust and essential foundation for battery validation across a broad range of uses. However, emerging use cases and breakthroughs can happen rapidly, while the standardization process takes time to evolve and mature. This challenge is further compounded by the diversity and lack of uniformity in battery system designs across the industry. For example, a poorly designed thermal management system can create temperature gradients across a battery pack, accelerating degradation even when the underlying cell chemistry is inherently robust.
The most significant challenges are validation speed and real-world fidelity. Batteries, particularly in automotive applications, are subjected to highly variable operating conditions, including diverse drive cycles, charging behaviours, and environmental conditions. Predicting long-term reliability over a vehicle’s service life cannot be achieved within compressed development timelines or through conventional validation cycles alone. Extensive cycle-life testing remains indispensable, and extrapolation techniques alone cannot reliably predict long-term performance. Nevertheless, validation can be accelerated by initiating testing earlier in the design process, adopting agile testing methodologies, and leveraging accelerated multi-factor ageing protocols.
Accurately predicting the combined effects of cyclic and calendar ageing remains a major challenge because the underlying degradation mechanisms are highly interdependent, condition-dependent, and sensitive to usage history. Consequently, battery developers are constrained by the impracticality of reproducing the full spectrum of real-world operating conditions during laboratory validation.
Although vehicle fleet data is increasingly being collected by automotive manufacturers, battery developers often have limited access to these datasets during the upstream design phase. This creates a persistent disconnect between laboratory validation and field performance. Bridging this gap requires greater collaboration across the value chain, improved mechanisms for sharing operational data, and systematic integration of field data into validation methodologies to reduce commercialization bottlenecks.
Keysight’s solutions span testing from individual cells to complete battery packs. Which stage of the battery development cycle is undergoing the most transformation today, and why?
Keysight empowers battery developers across the industry, enabling innovation in testing. Battery testing is undergoing transformation from fundamental cell-level characterization, navigating the challenges of new chemistries, to module-level evaluation focused on thermal behaviour, cell balancing, and interaction effects, and further to full battery pack system validation across evolving voltage architectures ranging from conventional 400 V to 1200 V.
The most significant transformation is occurring at the pack level, where multiple systems converge and interactions across electrical, thermal, and control domains must be managed. The Battery Management System (BMS) acts as the guardian of the battery pack across different operating conditions, continuously monitoring, protecting, and optimizing performance, safety, and longevity; however, this role is becoming increasingly challenging with diversifying cell types, power-hungry applications, and aggressive fast-charging profiles. Battery packs represent the point where complexity, integration, and real-world behaviour converge, which is challenged by factors such as fast-charging stress, uneven aging, and safety propagation.
One of the key constraints in pack testing is limited grid power availability, making high-power battery testing challenging, as multiple test channels and test profiles demand peak power levels that can exceed facility infrastructure, necessitating intelligent power allocation and load management. This is where solutions like Keysight’s Power Allocation Manager (PAM) play a pivotal role. At the core of this approach is a smarter architecture for high-power test labs, built around a combined regenerative power array that forms a shared energy pool with dynamic power allocation based on demand.
While transformation across all stages is critical, the battery pack level stands out as the focal point, where advanced power control and measurement solutions become essential to unlocking reliable performance and safety.
As energy storage projects scale from megawatt-hours to gigawatt-hours, what new testing and certification requirements are emerging for utility-scale BESS deployments?
Energy storage projects are scaling to gigawatt-hours in no time, with containerized Li-ion batteries or flow batteries being deployed depending on the use case. Testing and certification requirements are evolving toward a stronger focus on real-world performance, with IEC 62933 at the forefront and IEC 62619 + IEC 63056 + UL 9540 serving as key safety standards. There is increasing emphasis on multi-level testing across cell, module, unit, and system levels to evaluate critical risks including thermal runaway, fire propagation, and large-scale safety behaviour.
Unlike other battery applications, the focus has extended beyond individual cells and batteries, with validation now requiring assessment of integrated systems. This covers batteries, inverters, and control systems under realistic and stressed conditions operating together in practical grid scenarios. Validation is performed under fault conditions, abnormal events, and high-stress operational cycles. Additionally, high-capacity and high heat-load test environments are becoming essential to safely evaluate large modules, racks, and containerized BESS deployments, ensuring accurate representation of real installation environments. From a grid interaction perspective, compliance testing is also gaining importance, particularly in areas such as voltage ride-through, frequency response, power quality, harmonic performance, and anti-islanding.
Overall, the industry is shifting from component-level validation to comprehensive system-level certification, ensuring that gigawatt-scale BESS deployments operate safely, reliably, and efficiently under real-world conditions. Solutions such as Keysight’s grid-edge and HV battery test platforms further support this by enabling accurate emulation of grid conditions, dynamic power behaviour, and validation of grid compliance scenarios.
Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is increasingly being recognized as a powerful diagnostic tool for battery research. How do you see advanced characterization techniques transforming battery development and lifecycle management?
Advanced characterization techniques such as Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) are increasingly transforming battery development by offering deeper insights into internal electrochemical processes that conventional testing cannot capture. EIS enables precise evaluation of charge transfer resistance, ion diffusion behaviour, and degradation mechanisms across different states of charge and health. This allows faster optimization of materials, electrode design, and electrolytes, ultimately improving battery efficiency, performance, and stability.
To gain a more complete understanding of battery behaviour, EIS is often integrated with complementary techniques such as cyclic voltammetry, differential capacity analysis, and in-situ diagnostics. This combined approach provides a holistic view of performance under real operating conditions, capturing both dynamic responses and long-term degradation trends. As a result, it becomes easier to correlate laboratory findings with real-world usage, improving design validation and reducing uncertainties during development.
From a lifecycle management perspective, these advanced techniques enable early detection of aging, lithium plating, and internal faults, supporting proactive maintenance strategies and more reliable battery management systems. Improved correlation between test data and field behaviour helps in making informed design decisions and enhances system reliability. Overall, advanced characterization is shifting the industry toward proactive, data-driven battery development, leading to improvements in safety, durability, and long-term performance.
Safety remains one of the industry’s highest priorities. From thermal runaway analysis to high-voltage pack validation, what innovations in testing are proving most critical for the next generation of battery systems?
Safety must always remain the top priority in battery systems. Li-ion battery system safety spans electrical, mechanical, environmental, functional, and ultimately thermal. Advanced thermal runaway analysis, induced through internal short circuits, laser-based heating, or electrical abuse, coupled with controlled thermal propagation evaluation, enables precise, repeatable fault simulation and a deeper understanding of failure progression. These approaches help engineers better understand failure mechanisms, improve design robustness, and enhance overall system safety.
A critical enabler in this domain is the use of high heat-load rated thermal chambers, which provide uniform, controlled, and safe environments to replicate severe thermal stresses. These chambers ensure proper containment during failure events while enabling accurate study of heat propagation and system behaviour. At the pack level, validation aligned with standards such as UL/IEC focuses on propagation characteristics, heat release rates, and overall system resilience, ensuring the battery can withstand real-world abuse conditions without catastrophic failure.
In parallel, integration of high-speed data acquisition, thermal imaging, and gas analysis allows real-time correlation of electrical, thermal, and chemical responses during testing. Combined with calorimetric measurements and AI-driven analytics, these capabilities enable early fault detection, improve diagnostic accuracy, and support the development of predictive safety models, ultimately reducing risk and accelerating validation cycles.
Looking ahead to 2035, do you believe the competitive advantage in the battery industry will lie more in chemistry innovation, manufacturing scale, software intelligence, or advanced validation capabilities—and why?
Looking ahead to 2035, competitive advantage in the battery industry will be driven primarily by chemistry innovation, as it addresses key EV adoption challenges such as charging time (power density) and range (energy density) without compromising safety and lifecycle performance. The development of next-generation chemistries based on sustainable and abundant materials will further alleviate supply chain constraints while enhancing long-term cost stability. Materials and electrochemical advancements will always remain the core differentiator.
However, innovation must be complemented by the ability to validate reliably, scale effectively and intelligent real-world software monitoring. Advanced validation capabilities will play a key role as systems become more complex. AI-driven validation techniques will enable data driven performance characterization methodologies, identify early degradation trends, and resultantly optimize development timelines. Whereas manufacturing scale will be critical in ensuring that advanced chemistries can be produced cost-effectively to meet growing global demand. While software intelligence enhances monitoring, integration, and decision-making, it primarily acts as an enabler, with advanced algorithms increasingly predicting battery health, reducing downtime, and improving overall system reliability.
Competitive leadership will come from strong chemistry innovation reinforced by scalable production, intelligent validation, and software-driven predictive maintenance. In this context, advanced validation platforms such as those from Keysight simplify testing across diverse electrochemistries by providing precise measurements, real-time insights, and accurate real-world emulation.
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