Shared E-Scooter Battery Exchange Scheduling for Low Downtime
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electric scooter sharing services face challenges in addressing electricity shortages due to the time-consuming nature of battery charging, which renders scooters inoperative, and existing power transfer systems are inefficient for quick battery replenishment.
Innovation Solution
A management method for electric scooters that facilitates battery exchange between vehicles with sufficient and insufficient battery levels, including specifying exchange partners, requesting battery exchanges, determining exchange locations, and providing exchange instructions to complete the process efficiently.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by moving object
If battery charging is used to address electricity shortage, then the battery can be replenished with sufficient energy, but the scooters become inoperative for a long time and service availability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The battery system is segmented into interchangeable modules. Instead of charging the entire scooter battery in place (which causes long downtime), the battery is divided into a replaceable module that can be quickly swapped with a pre-charged module, reducing service unavailability time while maintaining sufficient energy replenishment
Solution Approach 2:
Batteries are pre-charged in advance at charging stations before being deployed to scooters. This preliminary charging action ensures that when a scooter needs battery replacement, a fully charged battery is already available, eliminating the waiting time associated with on-demand charging and maintaining continuous service availability
2Use of energy by moving object
If power transfer system with charging cable is used, then electric power can be transferred between vehicles, but the power supply work requires long time to complete
Solution Approach 1:
The power transfer process is segmented into two distinct operations: battery removal from the depleted scooter and battery installation of the charged battery. This segmentation eliminates the time-consuming cable connection and charging process, replacing it with a quick swap operation that maintains electric power transfer capability while dramatically reducing completion time
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of transferring power through a complex cable connection system, the invention uses a simple battery copy-exchange mechanism where a pre-charged battery (copy) replaces the depleted battery in the scooter. This copying approach achieves the same end result (powered scooter) with minimal time investment
Data Source
AI summary
When a management device receives battery exchange demand information from a first vehicle, the management device specifies at least one exchange partner candidate which is a vehicle providing a battery exchange with the first vehicle, transmits battery exchange request information to the exchange partner candidate, specifies, when receiving a battery exchange acceptance signal from a second vehicle, a battery exchange place based on location information about each of the first vehicle and the second vehicle, creates exchange instruction information including position information about the battery exchange place, and transmits the exchange instruction information to the first vehicle and the second vehicle.