METHOD FOR DETERMINING AN ARRANGEMENT OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE AND ARRANGEMENT DETERMINATION UNIT

• US 20160089997A1
• Filed: 09/30/2015
• Published: 03/31/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Martin Glanzer, Ulrike Glanzer
• Inventors: Glnzer, Ulrike, Schwarzer, Stefan, Seisenberger, Claus, Glnzer, Martin, Zerb, Marcus
• Granted Patent: US 10,406,928 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/126 Methods for pairing a vehicle and a charging station, e.g. establishing a one-to-one relation between a wireless power transmitter and a wireless power receiver
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/38 specially adapted for charging by inductive energy transfer
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 50/10 using inductive coupling
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 50/90 involving detection or optimisation of position, e.g. alignment
• 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

Abstract

A method for determining an arrangement of an electric vehicle relative to a charging point is provided. An alternating magnetic field is transmitted by a transmitting device arranged on the electric vehicle. The alternating magnetic field is received at a location of the charging point, and the arrangement is inferred based on the received alternating field. An arrangement determination unit is configured for use in a method of this type to determine the arrangement of the electric vehicle relative to the charging point using the received alternating field.

Claims

1. A method for determining an arrangement of an electric vehicle relative to a charging point in which an alternating magnetic field is transmitted by a transmitting device arranged on or fixed in relation to the electric vehicle, the method comprising:

receiving the alternating magnetic field at a location of the charging point; and

inferring the arrangement based on the received alternating field.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting device is fixed in relation to the electric vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting device comprises at least two transmit antennas, by which a time-division multiplex signal is transmitted.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two transmit antennas comprise coil antennas.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the alternating magnetic field is received by receive antennas.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the receive antennas comprise coil antennas.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein at least pairs of at least two coil antennas distanced by less than a largest coil dimension and arranged with corresponding coil planes oblique to one another are used as the receive antenna.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the corresponding coil planes are perpendicular to one another.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the alternating field has a frequency of at least 1 MHz

10. The method of claim 1, wherein a directional characteristic of the received alternating field is used.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a yaw angle of the electric vehicle or of a secondary charging coil of the electric vehicle.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein a power amount of an alternating field received by a pair of coil antennas or a variable derived therefrom is used.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a distance between the electric vehicle and the charging point.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein a physical vehicle model is used.

15. An arrangement determination unit configured to determine an arrangement of an electric vehicle relative to a charging point in which an alternating magnetic field is transmitted by a transmitting device arranged on or fixed in relation to the electric vehicle, the arrangement determining unit comprising:

a receive antenna configured to receive the alternating magnetic field at a location of the charging point; and

a processor configured to infer the arrangement based on the received alternating field.

16. The arrangement determination unit of claim 15, wherein the processor is configured to use signals received by the receive antenna.