Towards efficient electric vehicle charging using VANET-based information dissemination

The design of an efficient charging management system for on-the-move Electric Vehicles (EVs) has become an emerging research problem, in future connected vehicle applications given their mobility uncertainties. Major technical challenges here involve decision-making intelligence for the selection of Charging Stations (CSs), as well as the corresponding communication infrastructure for necessary information dissemination between the power grid and mobile EVs. In this article, we propose a holistic solution that aims to create high impact on the improvement of end users' driving experiences (e.g., to minimize EVs' charging waiting time during their journeys) and charging efficiency at the power grid side. Particularly, the CS-selection decision on where to charge is made by individual EVs for privacy and scalability benefits. The communication framework is based on a mobile Publish/Subscribe (P/S) paradigm to efficiently disseminate CSs condition information to EVs on-the-move. In order to circumvent the rigidity of having stationary Road Side Units (RSUs) for information dissemination, we promote the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) by exploiting the mobility of public transportation vehicles (e.g. buses) to bridge the information flow to EVs, given their opportunistic encounters. We analyze various factors affecting the possibility for EVs to access CSs information via opportunistic Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications, and also demonstrate the advantage of introducing buses as mobile intermediaries for information dissemination, based on a common EV charging management system under the Helsinki city scenario. We further study the feasibility and benefit of enabling EVs to send their charging reservations involved for CS-selection logic, via opportunistically encountered buses as well. Results show this advanced management system improves both performances at CS and EV sides.