CHARGING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• US 20150158393A1
• Filed: 02/13/2015
• Published: 06/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Solutions Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: KAWANO, Shinichiro, SUZUKI, Hiroyuki, KANO, Makoto, UNE, Yasuomi, YAMAMOTO, Junichi, HOSAKA, Norikazu, SEKINE, Satoshi, SHIMADA, Tsuyoshi
• Granted Patent: US 9,694,700 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/80 Time limits
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/58 Departure time prediction
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/60 Monitoring or controlling charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/65 involving identification of vehicles or their battery types
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/67 Controlling two or more charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/68 Off-site monitoring or control, e.g. remote control
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/04 Forecasting or optimisation specially adapted for administrative or management purposes, e.g. linear programming or "cutting stock problem" market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities G06Q30/0202
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/48 for electric vehicles [EV] or hybrid vehicles [HEV]
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/0013 acting upon several batteries simultaneously or sequentially H02J7/1423 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/7072 Electromobility specific charging systems or methods for batteries, ultracapacitors, supercapacitors or double-layer capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/12 Electric charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/14 Plug-in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/167 Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for supporting the interoperability of electric or hybrid vehicles, i.e. smartgrids as interface for battery charging of electric vehicles [EV] or hybrid vehicles [HEV]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 30/14 Details associated with the interoperability, e.g. vehicle recognition, authentication, identification or billing

Abstract

According to one embodiment, there is provided a charging management system. Based on an estimated duration from a time when an electric vehicle having arrived at each of a charging facilities starts charging until the charging is complete, the system determines the charging facility a charging facility utilization of which is to be recommended to be one of the charging facilities related to a path to a destination which has a shortest maximum wait time from a time when a plurality of electric vehicles arrive at the charging facility until the charging is complete, and reports information indicative of the determined charging facility to the electric vehicle not having arrived at the charging facility.

Claims

1. A charging management system comprising:

a vehicle information collection section configured to collect vehicle information including a battery remaining level, a current location, and a destination for each of a plurality of electric vehicles;

a facility information collection section configured to collect facility information including locations of charging facilities for the electric vehicles on a road;

a calculation section configured to;

(a) calculate, for each of the electric vehicles, a time of arrival at each of the charging facilities related to a path to the destination and an estimated value for the battery remaining level in a case of arrival at the charging facility, based on the information collected by the vehicle information collection section and the information acquired by the facility information collection section, and

(b) calculate, based on the calculated battery remaining level, candidates for a charging facility utilization of which is to be recommended which are included in the charging facilities related to the path to the destination of each of the electric vehicles and an estimated duration from a time when an electric vehicle having arrived at each of the charging facilities starts charging and until the charging is complete;

a determination section configured to determine the charging facility the utilization of which is to be recommended to be one of the charging facilities related to the path to the destination which has a shortest maximum wait time from a time when the plurality of electric vehicles arrive at the charging facility until the charging is complete, based on a determination result from the calculation section; and

a notification system configured to report information indicative of the charging facility determined by the determination section to the electric vehicle not having arrived at the charging facility.

2. The charging management system according to claim 1, wherein the notification section reports the information indicative of the charging facility determined by the determination section to the electric vehicle not having arrived at the charging facility, after a point in time that is a predetermined time before a point in time when the electric vehicle is expected to arrive at the charging facility.

3. The charging management system according to claim 1, wherein the determination section determines the charging facility the utilization of which is to be recommended based on:

(a) a criterion that attaches a higher value to convenience of a driver of the electric vehicle than to shortness of a charging time needed for the EV to use the charging station once, or

(b) a criterion that attaches a higher value to the shortness of the charging time needed for the EV to use the charging station once than to the convenience of the driver of the EV, and

wherein the determination section determines the charging facility the utilization of which is to be recommended based on;

(c) a criterion that attaches a higher value to the shortness of the charging time needed for the EV to use the charging station once than to the convenience of the driver of the EV, when, for the charging facility related to each of the plurality of electric vehicles and related to the path to the destination, a condition for a maximum wait time after the electric vehicle arrives at the charging facility, the condition being based on the calculation result from the calculation section, exceeds a predetermined value, so as to reduce the maximum wait time.