Fleet Route And Charging Coordination for Electric Delivery Vehicles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Commercial electric vehicles face inefficiencies in travel route planning and energy charging optimization, making it difficult to grasp wastefulness and optimize energy usage effectively.
Innovation Solution
An information processing method that acquires vehicle-related information, such as position, energy charge amount, travel conditions, and road congestion, to generate plans for delivery routes and energy charge timings with the highest energy efficiency, and commands vehicles to execute these plans, including reservations for charging stations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If vehicles travel independently around assigned areas without centralized coordination, then each vehicle can complete its delivery route, but overall energy efficiency cannot be optimized and wasteful travel routes cannot be identified
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges individual vehicle delivery routes into a unified fleet-level optimization system. The server aggregates position, energy charge amount, travel condition, and delivery destination information from multiple vehicles to generate coordinated delivery routes and energy charge timings that optimize overall fleet energy efficiency while ensuring each vehicle completes its deliveries.
2Reliability
If vehicles charge energy independently without coordination, then each vehicle can maintain its energy level, but charging congestion occurs at stations and peak charging times cannot be avoided
Solution Approach 1:
The server performs preliminary analysis of energy charge amounts and delivery schedules to determine optimal charging timings before vehicles arrive at charging stations. By predicting future energy needs and coordinating charging schedules in advance, the system prevents congestion and reduces waiting time while ensuring each vehicle maintains adequate energy levels for its delivery route.
3Loss of energy
If centralized control is implemented to optimize energy efficiency, then overall energy usage can be optimized, but system complexity increases requiring communication infrastructure and centralized processing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary between vehicles and charging stations. The server receives necessary information from vehicles (position, energy charge amount, travel condition, delivery destination), performs optimization calculations, and sends coordinated routing and charging instructions back to vehicles. This intermediary approach enables centralized optimization without requiring direct complex communication between all vehicles and charging infrastructure.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing method by an information processing apparatus capable of communicating with one or more vehicles delivering packages, the information processing method includes acquiring vehicle-related information including the position of each vehicle, the energy charge amount of each vehicle, the travel condition of each vehicle, a temperature, the weight of packages on each vehicle, delivery destination information on the packages on each vehicle, energy charging station information near a delivery route of each vehicle, and/or road congestion information, generating, from the vehicle-related information, plans for delivery routes and/or energy charge timings with the highest energy efficiency, and commanding the one or more vehicles to execute the plans.