Conventional hydraulic systems impose efficiency penalties on electrified off-highway equipment, increasing battery costs and reducing run-time. This presentation covers the development and testing of a distributed independent metering valve (dIMV) system on a mini-excavator, designed to mitigate these losses. Efficiency improvements come from minimizing meter-out losses, leveraging intelligent regeneration and gravity lowering, implementing electronic flow sharing and eliminating hose burst valves. IMUs enhance load status detection, enabling more efficient control strategies. A comparison with the baseline machine will be presented, with measured efficiency gains of 12-25%, alongside simulation results showing dIMV’s synergy with multipump architectures and energy recuperation strategies.

• How conventional hydraulics impact electrified machine efficiency, increasing battery size and reducing run-time
• How independent metering valves improve efficiency via smart regeneration, gravity lowering, and reduced meter-out losses
• How IMUs can enable load-aware control strategies for more efficient hydraulic operation
• Results of real world testing of an IMV equipped mini-excavator