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Role/Project Overview -
The Network Test Bed will function as an isolated, reconfigurable simulation environment for Form’s BMS communications architecture.
Rather than reproducing an entire battery product, the bench will recreate one complete communications layer at a time, such as:
- One AMU connected to five ZMUs
- One QMU connected to four AMUs
- A redundant BMU connected to multiple QMU quads
Software-defined network switches will reconfigure isolated networks to reproduce different operating conditions. The bench will allow Form to simulate:
- Communication-link losses
- Network congestion and contention
- Production wiring resistance
- Power interruptions and restart conditions
- Ground-current leakage
- Controller boot, synchronization and safety signaling
- Temperature and power-consumption behavior
The ultimate goal is to identify communication and hardware issues in the lab before they affect a deployed battery system.
Role Mission -
Design and specify the electrical infrastructure required to build a safe, modular and reconfigurable BMS communications test bench.
The engineer must be able to take high-level test requirements, evaluate custom versus commercial solutions, select an architecture and deliver sufficiently detailed designs and BOMs for another team to fabricate.
This is best suited to a hands-on test-hardware or electrical systems engineer—not a pure firmware engineer, PCB layout specialist or test technician.
Day-to-Day Responsibilities -
CAN/CAN-FD architecture:
- Evaluate different CAN gateway and bus-selector architectures, including:
- TI TCAN4550 CAN-FD devices
- MUX-controlled CAN-H/CAN-L buffering
- Commercial CAN-to-Ethernet gateways
- Recommend the appropriate architecture and channel count for AMU-to-Pack, ZMU-to-Pack and ZMU tower bus-pair selection.
- Design a minimized CAN harness that electrically emulates production wiring without requiring the full physical cable length.
- Define resistance, topology and termination requirements for full-ring network configurations.
- Produce the harness build specification and BOM.
Signal isolation and control
- Design or select opto-isolated GPIO boards with approximately eight inputs and eight outputs per target.
- Support boot-mode, synchronization and safety signaling across QMU, AMU, ZMU and CSB controller types.
- Specify isolated console USB connections for MPU- and MCU-based devices.
- Ensure electrical isolation and grounding are appropriate for reliable testing and equipment protection.
Power switching and monitoring
- Design or select GPIO- and relay-controlled switching for: 24V DC, 48V DC, AC loads, Approximately 100W, SPDT switching
- Integrate digitally readable power-consumption monitoring.
- Specify DC power distribution, including PSUs, bus bars, grounding and battery backup.
- Define per-device power-consumption and ground-leakage monitoring.
- Support custom power and supercapacitor test fixtures.
Test hardware and lab integration
- Support custom breadboards, test boards, bring-up fixtures and iterative hardware improvements.
- Select a thermal-camera solution for PCB- and system-level temperature monitoring.
- Support bring-up and troubleshoot electrical issues after the fabrication team builds the hardware.
- Document designs clearly enough for independent fabrication, assembly and future maintenance.
Future-phase scoping
- Help define future fiber-transceiver qualification requirements.
- Evaluate needs for programmable optical attenuators.
- Scope portable environmental-chamber testing for temperature and humidity qualification.
- Inform—but not necessarily execute—the later fiber-testing phase.
Must-Have Qualifications -
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent practical experience.
- Hands-on experience designing electrical hardware for test benches, lab systems, automated test equipment or embedded-system validation.
- Working knowledge of CAN and/or CAN-FD physical-layer design, including termination, topology, bus resistance and signal-routing considerations.
- Experience designing or specifying: Signal routing, Electrical isolation, GPIO interfaces, Relay-controlled switching, DC power distribution, Digital voltage, current or power monitoring.
- Ability to evaluate custom designs against commercial off-the-shelf solutions and make a technically justified recommendation.
- Ability to create clear schematics, wiring or harness specifications, engineering documentation and BOMs that another team can build from.
- Hands-on lab-debugging ability using tools such as oscilloscopes, DMMs, logic analyzers, power supplies and CAN analyzers.
- Capable of working independently in an initially open-ended environment.
- Able to work onsite in Berkeley for the duration of the contract.
Preferred Qualifications -
- Battery Management System or other distributed embedded-controller experience.
- Experience with reconfigurable communications or automated network test benches.
- Deeper CAN/CAN-FD experience involving gateways, bus selectors, ring topologies, fault insertion or multiple network segments.
- PCB schematic design and board bring-up experience.
- Familiarity with isolation boundaries, leakage-current measurement and grounding strategies.
- Experience integrating software-controlled relays, power supplies, switches and measurement devices.
- Fiber-optic transceiver or programmable optical-attenuator experience.
- Environmental qualification experience involving temperature or humidity testing.
- Experience selecting or integrating thermal-imaging systems.
- Previous contract or project-based work delivering designs to a separate fabrication team.
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