An efficient electric vehicle charging architecture based on LoRa communication

Abstract

The previous years saw the emergence of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Charging Stations (CSs). In such deployments, energy-efficiency and optimal energy distribution are some of the most essential parameters to address, as on-time demand for supplying energy to EVs must be fulfilled. Nowadays several standards exist in the community. In this paper, after a thorough study of the existing solutions, we propose and design a new communication protocol between EVs and CSs. We aim to improve the management of energy produced by solar panels which is required by EVs. Our approach extends the existing standards by informing a priori EVs about the energy availability within CSs, while efficiently handling the energy micro-generation. Moreover, it allows Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) exchange of energy in case an Energy Management System (EMS) does not have enough energy stored. This paper details the data exchange over LoRaWAN between an EMS, which handles CSs, and an EV. Finally, a proof-of-concept system has been developed with a Turtlebot robot, acting as an EV, connected to a CPU board equipped with a LoRa antenna and another CPU board, playing the role of an EMS. It demonstrates how the designed architecture could work in a realistic scenario.