EV Charger Power-Line Payment Authorization Before Charging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electric vehicle charging systems lack efficient and secure methods for identifying and authorizing payment methods over charging connections, leading to potential errors and inefficiencies in charging processes, especially when charging away from home locations.
Innovation Solution
An electric vehicle charger equipped with a power supply, communications device, and controller that uses power-line communications protocols to identify and authorize payment methods by establishing a nominal power connection, exchanging cryptographic key pairs, and validating digital signatures before initiating full power supply for charging.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If payment authorization is performed over the charging connection using power-line communications, then secure and efficient payment processing is achieved, but the system complexity increases due to cryptographic key exchange and digital signature validation requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by establishing a nominal power connection and exchanging cryptographic key pairs before initiating full power supply for charging. This preliminary cryptographic setup includes validating digital signatures and authorizing payment methods in advance, ensuring secure payment processing is completed before the actual charging begins, thus resolving the security-reliability contradiction without compromising system operation
Solution Approach 2:
The controller acts as an intermediary between the power supply and payment network, managing the complex cryptographic key exchange and digital signature validation processes. It coordinates the nominal power connection establishment and uses it as a communication channel for secure payment authorization, mediating between the physical charging infrastructure and digital payment systems to handle the increased protocol complexity
2Reliability
If a nominal level of power is supplied to establish communication before full charging, then secure payment identification is enabled, but the charging time increases due to the preliminary communication phase
Solution Approach 1:
The system supplies a nominal level of power as a preliminary action to establish the communication channel needed for identifying and authorizing payment methods. This nominal power phase occurs before full charging begins, enabling secure payment identification through cryptographic exchanges. The preliminary nature of this phase separates the payment authorization timeline from the main charging timeline, addressing the reliability-time contradiction
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses a partial power supply (nominal level insufficient for full charging) during the communication phase. This partial action provides just enough power to enable cryptographic key exchange and digital signature validation without committing full charging capacity, allowing payment identification to complete before the main charging event, thus resolving the accuracy-time tradeoff
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Ensures secure and efficient payment authorization, allowing for seamless charging operations by establishing a secure communication channel over the charging connection, reducing errors and enhancing user experience, especially in away-from-home charging scenarios.
Implementation Method 1
The power supply may be adapted to send data to and receive data from the electric vehicle over the one or more charging conductors according to a power-line communications protocol
Data Source
AI summary
An electric vehicle charger includes a power supply and a controller. The power supply is for supplying electric power over a charging connection to an electric vehicle. The charging connection employs charging conductors to supply electric power from the power supply to the electric vehicle for charging. The power supply is adapted to send data to and receive data from the electric vehicle over the charging conductors according to a power-line communications protocol. The controller coupled to the power supply to control supply of electric power to the electric vehicle, The controller is adapted to, prior to initiating supply of electric power by the power supply to the electric vehicle for charging, communicate with the electric vehicle to identify a payment method associated with the electric vehicle and with the payment network to authorize the payment method for payment for electric power supplied to the electric vehicle for charging.