Drivespowers

Drivespowers is a term used in energy management and drive-system design to describe the coordinated control of propulsion drives and power sources within a vehicle or robotic platform. It encompasses the hardware and software mechanisms that allocate electric motor torque, regulate power flow from batteries or other energy storage, and coordinate auxiliary subsystems such as cooling and regenerative braking.

Origins and usage: The term is a neologism that appears in industry white papers and academic discussions in the 2010s and 2020s, where engineers seek a concise way to refer to multi-drive architectures that optimize overall performance rather than a single motor. It is not tied to a single standard, and definitions vary by author or application context.

Core concepts: A drivespowers system integrates multiple motor controllers, energy storage, and thermal management. It uses control algorithms to perform torque vectoring, energy regeneration, and mode switching for efficiency, performance, or range objectives. Safety and fault-tolerance are addressed through redundancy and health monitoring, while communications networks (such as CAN, LIN, or Ethernet) ensure coordination among components.

Applications: Multi-motor electric vehicles, including all-wheel-drive cars and trucks; mobile robotics and automation platforms; and heavy machinery with distributed drive units. In practice, authors may refer to drivespowers as a subset of powertrain control or as a framework for energy management in distributed drive systems.

Limitations and debate: The term remains informal and can overlap with related concepts such as powertrain control, motor torque management, and energy management systems. Adoption depends on standardization of interfaces and control strategies.