A Review of Sensor Applications in Electric Vehicle Thermal Management Systems

With the rapid development of the automotive industry, the application of sensors is of great importance in maintaining the reliability of electric vehicles and ensuring the safe operation of electric vehicles. Faced with the increasing data of thermal management system condition monitoring, sensor detection is widely used in the monitoring of electric vehicle thermal management system. In recent years, a large number of related studies and contributions to the literature have been published. Although a number of reviews have summarized this, these reviews lack an overview of the issues and methods raised in these studies. This paper reviews recent sensor applications for electric vehicle thermal management systems. Currently, battery internal sensors, battery external sensors and related multi-sensor fusion, traditional motor sensors, positionless motor sensors, and component-level sensors of air conditioning systems are the main application sensors in the field of thermal management systems. This article introduces the basic principles of each type of sensor, reviews the relevant applications of various thermal management modules, and summarizes the usage characteristics of each type of sensor. The main problems faced by the existing research on the application of thermal management system-based sensors, such as the detection accuracy of traditional sensors and the detection stability of advanced sensors, are summarized, and the solutions proposed by the existing research are also summarized. Finally, some future research directions, trends, and hotspots are outlined. It is hoped that this review can help readers to understand the problems and existing solutions for thermal-management-system-based sensor applications, and to conduct related research more effectively.