AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC GROUND SERVICE EQUIPMENT PARKING BAY MONITORING SYSTEM

• US 20170337448A1
• Filed: 03/06/2017
• Published: 11/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2016
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hong Kong Productivity Council
• Original Assignee: Hong Kong Productivity Council
• Inventors: Ng, Chiu Shing, Lee, Wai Chung, Li, Tai Wai, Chung, Yuen Yee, Chan, Shuk Ching
• Application Number:
  US15/451,402
• Publication Number:
  US 20170337448A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/00 Methods of charging batteries, specially adapted for electric vehicles; Charging stations or on-board charging equipment therefor; Exchange of energy storage elements in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/214 Generating training patterns; Bootstrap methods, e.g. bagging or boosting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/2431 Multiple classes
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/084 Backpropagation, e.g. using gradient descent
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20081 Training; Learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20084 Artificial neural networks [ANN]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30232 Surveillance
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30261 Obstacle
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30264 Parking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/053 Detail-in-context presentations fisheye or wide-angle transformations G06T3/047
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 Region-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/174 involving the use of two or more images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/73 using feature-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/144 on portable or mobile units, e.g. personal digital assistant [PDA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source
• 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 90/14 : Plug-in 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 30/12 : Remote or cooperative charging

Abstract

A parking bay monitoring system for electric vehicles includes a main unit for each parking bay, a router being housed in the main unit and connects to a network, at least one digital camera mounted in a position to take digital images of a parking bay, wherein the digital images are transmitted via the router to a central server for analysis by a visual recognition framework to generate a detection result. The system further includes a charging unit, wherein real time data relating to charging is logged and transmitted to the central server, wherein an occupancy status for each parking bay is generated based on the detection result and said data. The system generates a list containing the occupancy status of each parking bay and the said list being accessible by at least one terminal connected to the network.

Claims

1. A parking bay monitoring system for electric vehicles, comprising:

a main unit for each parking bay;

a router being housed in the main unit and connects to a network;

at least one digital camera mounted in a position to take digital images of a parking bay, wherein the digital images are transmitted via the router to a central server for analysis by a visual recognition framework to generate a detection result, and

a charging unit, wherein real time data relating to charging is logged and transmitted to the central server, and an occupancy status for each parking bay is generated based on the detection result and said data,

wherein the system generates a list containing the occupancy status of each parking bay and the list being accessible by at least one terminal connected to the network.

2. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one terminal accesses the system via the network based on a web platform.

3. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 2, wherein the at least one terminal may be a stationary computer.

4. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 2, wherein the at least one terminal may be a mobile device.

5. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein real time data relating to charging includes, voltage, current and temperature.

6. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein visual recognition framework detects obstructions on the parking bays using a back-propagation neural network, the visual recognition framework comprises a training phase and a detection phase.

7. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 6, wherein the training phase comprises processes of selecting multiple images from the camera, defining regions of interest of the images and conducting perspective transform, extracting the regions of interest from the images, extracting histogram of gradient descriptors and hue saturation value descriptors from the images, classifying the images into two groups.

8. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 7, wherein the detection phase comprises the processes of selecting the multiple images from the training phase, importing features to the back-propagation neural network to obtain a detection result.

9. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the system estimates remaining time of charging by means of equivalent circuit modelling.

10. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the electric vehicles may be electric ground service equipment.

11. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the occupancy status may be occupied, unauthorized parking, overdue or malfunction.

12. The parking bay monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the said system is implemented in an airport.