Charging management device

Abstract

Improve the technology for managing vehicle charging schedules. [Solution] A charging management device 10 for managing the charging of multiple vehicles 20 detects a first vehicle from the multiple vehicles 20, detects a second vehicle from the multiple vehicles 20, and instructs to perform accelerated charging. Accelerated charging is performed on the vehicle whose distance from the current position to the charging station is relatively short when the first vehicle performs accelerated charging and the first driving time, which is expected to be able to drive the first vehicle without recharging at a predetermined SOC of the first vehicle, is less than or equal to the first remaining time from the time the first vehicle's charging is completed to a predetermined time, or when the second vehicle performs accelerated charging and the second driving time, which is expected to be able to drive the second vehicle without recharging at a predetermined SOC of the second vehicle, is longer than the second remaining time from the time the second vehicle's charging is completed to a predetermined time.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present disclosure relates to a charging management device.

Background Art

[0002] Conventionally, technologies for managing vehicle charging plans are known. For example, in Patent Document 1, when all chargers at the charger installation location set in the current charging plan are in use, based on the delivery map, the current charging plan, the charger installation location, the charger usage status, and the current location information, a charging plan management device that calculates a new charging plan for setting a new charger installation location having an unused charger is disclosed.

Prior Art Documents

Patent Documents

[0003]

Patent Document 1

Summary of the Invention

Problems to be Solved by the Invention

[0004] In a vehicle dispatch service using electric vehicles, it may be necessary to charge the vehicles during business hours. If the charging time zones of a plurality of vehicles overlap with each other, some vehicles need to wait until the charging of other vehicles is completed. As a result, the downtime, which is the time when the service cannot be provided, increases. When there are few charging bases, the downtime further increases. The object of the present disclosure is to improve the technology for managing vehicle charging plans.

Means for Solving the Problems

[0005] A charging management device for managing the charging of a plurality of vehicles according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, detects a first vehicle having a state of charge (SOC) greater than a first threshold value and less than or equal to a second threshold value greater than the first threshold value from the plurality of vehicles, A second vehicle is detected from the plurality of vehicles whose predicted charging time overlaps with that of the first vehicle and which has a larger SOC than that of the first vehicle. The system is instructed to move either the first or second vehicle to a charging station and to perform accelerated charging, completing the charging to a predetermined SOC by the time the other vehicle's charging is scheduled to begin. The aforementioned accelerated charging is When the first vehicle performs the accelerated charging, if the first driving time, which is expected to be the time during which the first vehicle can drive without recharging at its predetermined SOC, is less than or equal to the first remaining time from the time the first vehicle's charging is completed until the predetermined time, or When the second vehicle performs the accelerated charging, if the second driving time, which is expected to be the time during which the second vehicle can drive without recharging at its predetermined SOC, is longer than the second remaining time from the time the second vehicle's charging is completed to the predetermined time, This procedure is performed on vehicles whose current location is relatively close to the charging station. [Effects of the Invention]

[0006] According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the technology for managing a vehicle's charging schedule is improved. [Brief explanation of the drawing]

[0007] [Figure 1] This block diagram shows a schematic configuration of a system according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. [Figure 2] This flowchart shows the operation of a charging management device according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. [Modes for carrying out the invention]

[0008] (Summary of this embodiment) Referring to Figure 1, an overview of System 1 according to one embodiment of this disclosure will be described. System 1 comprises a charging management device 10 and a plurality of vehicles 20. The charging management device 10 and the plurality of vehicles 20 are connected to each other via a network 30, including the Internet.

[0009] The charging management device 10 manages the charging of multiple vehicles 20. The charging management device 10 provides a ride-hailing service such as a robotaxi, or any service using multiple vehicles 20. The charging management device 10 includes one server device or multiple computers that can communicate with each other.

[0010] The multiple vehicles 20 include any vehicle such as automobiles or buses. The multiple vehicles 20 can be charged at charging stations. The multiple vehicles 20 may include BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles), HEVs (Hybrid Electric Vehicles), or PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles). In this embodiment, the multiple vehicles 20 are autonomous driving vehicles 20 capable of autonomous driving with an SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) level of 1 to 5. The multiple vehicles 20 may also be manually driving vehicles 20 capable of manual driving with a level of 0.

[0011] First, an overview of this embodiment will be described, and details will be described later. According to one embodiment of this disclosure, a charging management device 10 that manages the charging of multiple vehicles 20 detects from the multiple vehicles 20 a first vehicle whose SOC (State of Charge) is greater than a first threshold and less than or equal to a second threshold greater than the first threshold. Here, SOC is an index that indicates the current charge state of the battery. SOC quantifies the remaining energy of the battery and expresses as a percentage (usually 0% to 100%) how much of the total capacity is currently available energy. The charging management device 10 detects from the multiple vehicles 20 a second vehicle whose predicted charging time overlaps with that of the first vehicle and whose SOC is greater than that of the first vehicle. The charging management device 10 also instructs either the first vehicle or the second vehicle to move to a charging station and to perform accelerated charging so that charging to a predetermined SOC is completed by the charging start time of the other vehicle. Here, accelerated charging is performed on the vehicle whose distance from the current location to the charging station is relatively short when the first vehicle performs accelerated charging and the first driving time, which is expected to be the time when the first vehicle can drive without recharging at its predetermined SOC, is less than or equal to the first remaining time from the time the first vehicle's charging is completed until the predetermined time, or when the second vehicle performs accelerated charging and the second driving time, which is expected to be the time when the second vehicle can drive without recharging at its predetermined SOC, is longer than the second remaining time from the time the second vehicle's charging is completed until the predetermined time.

[0012] In this embodiment, the charging management device 10 instructs one of several vehicles 20 whose charging times are expected to overlap to perform accelerated charging, completing its charge by the time the other vehicles have finished charging. This prevents a sudden decrease in the number of vehicles available for service and reduces downtime due to charging. When instructing accelerated charging, the charging management device 10 considers the need for recharging by a predetermined time (for example, break time or closing time) to determine which vehicle should perform accelerated charging. This clarifies the criteria for deciding whether to perform accelerated charging and enables the automatic execution of charging instructions.

[0013] (Configuration of the charging management device 10) As shown in Figure 1, the charging management device 10 comprises a control unit 11, a communication unit 12, and a storage unit 13. The control unit 11 includes at least one processor. The processor is a general-purpose processor such as a CPU, or a dedicated processor specialized for specific processing. The control unit 11 controls each part of the charging management device 10 and executes processing related to the operation of the charging management device 10. The communication unit 12 includes at least one communication interface connected to the network 30. The communication interface may support, for example, a mobile communication standard such as 5G (5th generation), or a wired LAN (Local Area Network) communication standard or a wireless LAN communication standard. The storage unit 13 includes one or more memories. Each memory included in the storage unit 13 may function as, for example, a main memory, an auxiliary memory, or a cache memory. The storage unit 13 stores any information used in the operation of the charging management device 10. For example, the storage unit 13 may store, for example, a system program, an application program, and embedded software.

[0014] (Each vehicle consists of 20 cars) As shown in Figure 1, each vehicle 20 comprises a control unit 21, a communication unit 22, a positioning unit 23, a battery 24, and a battery management unit 25. The control unit 21 includes at least one processor. The processor is a general-purpose processor such as a CPU, or a dedicated processor specialized for specific processing. The control unit 21 controls each part of the vehicle 20 and executes processing related to the operation of the vehicle 20. The communication unit 22 includes at least one communication interface connected to the network 30. The communication interface may support, for example, a mobile communication standard such as 5G, or a wired LAN communication standard or a wireless LAN communication standard. The positioning unit 23 includes one or more devices that acquire location information of the vehicle 20, for example, a receiver compatible with a satellite positioning system such as GPS (Global Positioning System). The battery 24 is a rechargeable secondary battery. The battery 24 supplies power to each part of the vehicle 20. The battery management unit 25 monitors the State of Charge (SOC) of the battery 24 and controls the charging and discharging of the battery 24. The battery management unit 25 is equipped with a battery level meter that measures the State of Charge (SOC).

[0015] (Operation flow of the charging management device 10) Referring to Figure 2, the operation of the charging management device 10 according to one embodiment of this disclosure will be described. In the following, communication between the charging management device 10 and the multiple vehicles 20 is performed via the communication units 12, 22 and the network 30.

[0016] S1: The control unit 11 of the charge management device 10 determines whether it has detected a first vehicle from among the multiple vehicles 20 that has a State of Charge (SOC) greater than a first threshold and less than or equal to a second threshold. The second threshold is greater than the first threshold. For example, the first threshold is 30% and the second threshold is 50%. If a first vehicle is detected (S1-YES), the process proceeds to S2. If a first vehicle is not detected (S1-NO), the process executes S1 again, for example, after a predetermined time has elapsed. The predetermined time is, for example, 10 minutes.

[0017] The charging management device 10 is configured to instruct charging for a vehicle having an SOC below a first threshold among a plurality of vehicles 20. The charging management device 10 according to the present embodiment determines whether or not the first vehicle has been detected before the instruction.

[0018] S2: The control unit 11 determines whether or not a second vehicle having a predicted charging time zone overlapping with the first vehicle and having an SOC greater than the SOC of the first vehicle has been detected from the plurality of vehicles 20. If the second vehicle is not detected (S2-NO), the process proceeds to S3. If the second vehicle is detected (S2-YES), the process proceeds to S4.

[0019] The control unit 11 calculates a predicted charging time zone for each vehicle from the current SOC of each vehicle and the assumed SOC decrease rate. The assumed SOC decrease rate may be calculated based on, for example, the time from the business start time to the current time and the amount of decrease in SOC during that time.

[0020] S3: When the SOC of the first vehicle becomes less than or equal to the first threshold, the control unit 11 instructs to execute charging for the first vehicle. In S3, the predicted charging time zones of the plurality of vehicles 20 do not overlap with each other.

[0021] S4 and S5, which will be described later, are processes for determining which vehicle to instruct for priority charging. Priority charging refers to moving either the first vehicle or the second vehicle to a charging base and completing charging up to a predetermined SOC by the charging start time of the other vehicle. The predetermined SOC is, for example, 100%. S4 and S5 are processes for determining whether to instruct priority charging based on either the distance from the current position of each vehicle to the charging base or the amount of SOC of each vehicle. The distance may be evaluated not only as a straight-line distance but also as a distance based on the actual movement route and the movement time.

[0022] S4: The control unit 11 determines whether the second available running time is longer than the second remaining time. If the second available running time is longer than the second remaining time (S4-YES), the process proceeds to S7. If the second available running time is less than or equal to the second remaining time (S4-NO), the process proceeds to S5.

[0023] The second available driving time is the expected time during which the second vehicle can operate without recharging at its predetermined SOC after performing an accelerated charge. Recharging refers to charging performed again when the vehicle's SOC falls below the first threshold mentioned above after the vehicle has been charged. The predetermined SOC of the second vehicle is, for example, 100%. The vehicle's available driving time is calculated based, for example, the vehicle's energy consumption, the average speed during service provision, and the amount of energy in the battery 24 at the predetermined SOC. The second remaining time is the time from the completion of the second vehicle's charge to a predetermined time when the second vehicle performs an accelerated charge. The predetermined time is, for example, the break time or closing time of the service provided by the charging management device 10.

[0024] In S4, the control unit 11 determines whether the second vehicle can travel until a predetermined time without recharging when the second vehicle performs accelerated charging. When the second vehicle performs accelerated charging, the charging completion time of the first vehicle is later than the charging completion time of the second vehicle. Therefore, if the second vehicle can travel until the predetermined time without recharging, the first vehicle, which completes charging later than the second vehicle, can also travel until the predetermined time without recharging. In this case, recharging is unnecessary regardless of which vehicle performs accelerated charging. Therefore, by having the vehicle with a relatively shorter distance from its current position to the charging station perform accelerated charging, downtime can be reduced by shortening the travel time.

[0025] S5: The control unit 11 determines whether the first available driving time is longer than the first remaining time. If the first available driving time is longer than the first remaining time (S5-YES), the process proceeds to S6. If the first available driving time is less than or equal to the first remaining time (S5-NO), the process proceeds to S7.

[0026] The first available driving time is the expected time during which the first vehicle can operate without recharging at its predetermined State of Charge (SOC) after performing accelerated charging. The predetermined SOC of the first vehicle is, for example, 100%. The first remaining time is the time from the time the first vehicle completes charging to the predetermined time when the first vehicle performs accelerated charging.

[0027] The predetermined SOC of the first vehicle and the predetermined SOC of the second vehicle may be set so that the first and second operating times are the same. For example, if the energy consumption and battery capacity 24 are the same between the first and second vehicles, the predetermined SOCs of the first and second vehicles may be set to be the same. For example, if the energy consumption or battery capacity 24 differs between the first and second vehicles, the predetermined SOCs of the first and second vehicles may be different.

[0028] In S5, the control unit 11 determines whether the first vehicle can travel until a predetermined time without recharging when the first vehicle performs accelerated charging. If the first vehicle cannot travel until the predetermined time without recharging, the second vehicle, which completes charging earlier than the first vehicle, also cannot travel until the predetermined time without recharging. In this case, recharging is necessary regardless of which vehicle performs accelerated charging. Therefore, by having the vehicle with a relatively shorter distance from its current position to the charging station perform accelerated charging, downtime can be reduced by shortening the travel time. On the other hand, if the first vehicle can travel until the predetermined time without recharging, the increase in downtime due to recharging is considered to be more dominant than the increase in downtime due to vehicle movement. Therefore, in this case, the control unit 11 can reduce downtime by having the first vehicle, i.e., the vehicle with a relatively small SOC, perform accelerated charging, thereby avoiding recharging.

[0029] S6: The control unit 11 instructs the first vehicle to perform accelerated charging.

[0030] S7: The control unit 11 instructs vehicles whose current location is relatively close to a charging station to perform accelerated charging. If there are multiple charging stations, the control unit 11 compares the distance from each vehicle's current location to the charging station closest to each vehicle and instructs vehicles whose distance is relatively short to perform accelerated charging.

[0031] While this disclosure has been described based on the drawings and embodiments, it should be noted that those skilled in the art may make various modifications and alterations based on this disclosure. Therefore, it should be noted that these modifications and alterations are within the scope of this disclosure. For example, the functions, etc., included in each component or step, etc., can be rearranged in a logically consistent manner, and multiple components or steps, etc., can be combined into one or separated. For example, in the embodiment described above, an embodiment is also possible in which the configuration and operation of the charge management device 10 are distributed among multiple computers that can communicate with each other.

[0032] After S1, the control unit 11 may determine whether it has detected a third vehicle from among a plurality of vehicles whose predicted charging time overlaps with that of the first vehicle and whose SOC is equal to that of the first vehicle. An SOC equal to that of the first vehicle includes an SOC whose difference from the SOC of the first vehicle is less than or equal to a predetermined value. The predetermined value is, for example, 5% of the SOC of the first vehicle. If a third vehicle is detected, the control unit 11 may instruct the vehicle whose distance from its current position to the charging station is relatively short to perform accelerated charging. Downtime can be reduced by shortening the time required for travel. [Explanation of symbols]

[0033] 1 System, 10 Charging Management Device, 11 Control Unit, 12 Communication Unit, 13 Memory Unit, 20 Vehicle, 21 Control Unit, 22 Communication Unit, 23 Positioning Unit, 24 Battery, 25 Battery Management Unit, 30 Network

Claims

1. A charging management device that manages the charging of multiple vehicles, A first vehicle having a SOC greater than a first threshold and less than or equal to a second threshold greater than the first threshold is detected from among a plurality of vehicles. A second vehicle is detected from the plurality of vehicles whose predicted charging time overlaps with that of the first vehicle and which has a greater SOC than that of the first vehicle. The system is instructed to move either the first or second vehicle to a charging station and to perform accelerated charging so that it can be charged to a predetermined state of charge (SOC) by the time the other vehicle is scheduled to begin charging. The aforementioned accelerated charging is When the first vehicle performs the accelerated charging, if the first driving time, which is expected to be the time during which the first vehicle can drive without recharging at a predetermined SOC of the first vehicle, is less than or equal to the first remaining time from the time the first vehicle's charging is completed to the predetermined time, or When the second vehicle performs the accelerated charging, if the second driving time, which is expected to be the time during which the second vehicle can drive without recharging at its predetermined SOC, is longer than the second remaining time from the time the second vehicle's charging is completed to the predetermined time, A charging management device that is implemented for vehicles whose current location is relatively close to the charging station.

2. A charging management device according to claim 1, wherein the advance charging is When the first vehicle performs the accelerated charging, the first driving time exceeds the first remaining time, When the second vehicle performs the accelerated charging, if the second driving time is less than or equal to the second remaining time, A charging management device that is performed on the first vehicle.

3. A charging management device according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined SOC of the first vehicle and the predetermined SOC of the second vehicle are set such that the first drivable time and the second drivable time are the same.

4. A charging management device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of vehicles are autonomous vehicles.

5. A charging management device according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined time is the rest time or closing time of the service using the plurality of vehicles.

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