AUTOMATED ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20110254504A1
• Filed: 04/19/2011
• Published: 10/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Interim Design, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Interim Design, Inc.
• Inventors: Lysak, Daniel B., Haddad, Joseph C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,853,999 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 320/109
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/14 Conductive energy transfer
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/18 Cables specially adapted for charging electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/35 Means for automatic or assisted adjustment of the relative position of charging devices and vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/37 using optical position determination, e.g. using cameras
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/65 involving identification of vehicles or their battery types
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/665 Methods related to measuring, billing or payment
• 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 30/12 Remote or cooperative charging
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 30/14 Details associated with the interoperability, e.g. vehicle recognition, authentication, identification or billing

Abstract

A system and method for charging an electric vehicle includes identifying vehicle information corresponding to the electric vehicle based on an electronic image of the electric vehicle, retrieving from an electronically stored database a location of a charging port on the electric vehicle based on the vehicle information, and robotically moving a charging connector according to the retrieved location to engage the charging port of the electric vehicle to charge a battery.

Claims

1. A method for charging an electric vehicle, comprising:

identifying vehicle information corresponding to the electric vehicle based on an electronic image of the electric vehicle;

retrieving from an electronically stored database a location of a charging port on the electric vehicle based on the vehicle information; and

robotically moving a charging connector according to the retrieved location to engage the charging port of the electric vehicle to charge a battery.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

acquiring a plurality of two-dimensional (2D) images of a field of view;

determining whether the electric vehicle has entered the field of view based on an analysis of the plurality of images;

extracting a plurality of features of the electric vehicle from each image; and

tracking a position and pose of the electric vehicle while the electric vehicle is in motion using the extracted features.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

constructing a three-dimensional (3D) model of the electric vehicle using the plurality of 2D images, wherein

identifying the vehicle information is based on a comparison of features in the 3D model of the electric vehicle with corresponding features in a plurality of 3D vehicle model candidates stored in the database.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

rotating each of a plurality of three-dimensional (3D) vehicle model candidates stored in the database to match a pose of the electric vehicle in each of the plurality of 2D images; and

converting each rotated 3D vehicle model candidate to a 2D vehicle model candidate,

wherein identifying the vehicle information is based on a comparison of features in each of the 2D plurality of images with corresponding features in each 2D vehicle model candidate.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the position and pose of the electric vehicle are different in each of the plurality of 2D images, and the position and pose of the electric vehicle in each image are used to identify the vehicle information.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

acquiring an additional plurality of 2D images, wherein the additional plurality of 2D images have a viewpoint different from the plurality of 2D images of the field of view, and include the charging connector and the charging port;

verifying the location of the charging port on the electric vehicle using the additional plurality of 2D images; and

guiding the charging connector towards the charging port using the additional plurality of 2D images.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

using background-subtraction to determine whether the electric vehicle has entered the field of view.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying vehicle information comprises comparing the electronic image of the electric vehicle with a plurality of vehicle model candidates stored in the database.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

calculating a similarity score for each of the vehicle model candidates stored in the vehicle database; and

selecting a vehicle model candidate having a highest similarity score,

wherein the vehicle information is identified using the selected vehicle model candidate.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the identified vehicle information includes a make of the electric vehicle, a model of the electric vehicle, and a year of the electric vehicle, and the location of the charging port on the electric vehicle is identified using a vehicle model candidate stored in the database having a same make, model and year as the electric vehicle.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

robotically disengaging the charging connector from the charging port on the electric vehicle.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

robotically removing a door covering the charging port on the electric vehicle prior to engaging the charging connector into the charging port; and

robotically covering the charging port with the door subsequent to disengaging the charging connector from the charging port.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving customer billing information using a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag mounted on the electric vehicle; and

transmitting the customer billing information to a remote billing system.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

downloading an update to the database from a remote system upon determining that the update is available.

15. A method for charging an electric vehicle, comprising:

identifying vehicle information corresponding to the electric vehicle using a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag on the electric vehicle;

retrieving from an electronically stored database a location of a charging port on the electric vehicle based on the vehicle information; and

robotically moving a charging connector according to the retrieved location to engage the charging port of the electric vehicle to charge a battery.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

acquiring a plurality of images of a field of view;

determining whether the electric vehicle has entered the field of view based on an analysis of the plurality of images;

extracting a plurality of features of the electric vehicle from each image; and

tracking a position and pose of the electric vehicle while the electric vehicle is in motion using the extracted features.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

acquiring an additional plurality of images, wherein the additional plurality of images have a viewpoint different from the plurality of images of the field of view, and include the charging connector and the charging port;

verifying the location of the charging port on the electric vehicle using the additional plurality of images; and

guiding the charging connector towards the charging port using the additional plurality of images.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the identified vehicle information includes a make of the electric vehicle, a model of the electric vehicle, and a year of the electric vehicle, and

the location of the charging port on the electric vehicle is identified using a vehicle model candidate stored in the database having a same make, model and year as the electric vehicle.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

robotically disengaging the charging connector from the charging port on the electric vehicle.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

robotically removing a door covering the charging port on the electric vehicle prior to engaging the charging connector into the charging port; and

robotically covering the charging port with the door subsequent to disengaging the charging connector from the charging port.

21. A system for charging an electric vehicle, comprising:

a first camera, configured to acquire an electronic image of the electric vehicle;

an electronic database;

a processor, configured to identify vehicle information corresponding to the electric vehicle based on the electronic image of the electric vehicle, and retrieve from the electronic database a location of a charging port on the electric vehicle based on the vehicle information; and

a robotic arm, configured to move a charging connector according to the retrieved location to engage the charging port of the electric vehicle to charge a battery.

22. The system of claim 21, further comprising:

an actuator disposed on the robotic arm, configured to open a door covering the charging port of the electric vehicle prior to engaging the charging connector into the charging port, and close the door covering the charging port upon disengaging the charging connector from the charging port.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein:

the first camera is further configured to acquire a plurality of images of a field of view; and

the processor is further configured to determine whether the electric vehicle has entered the field of view based on an analysis of the plurality of images, extract a plurality of features of the electric vehicle from each image, and track a position and pose of the electric vehicle while the electric vehicle is in motion using the extracted features.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising:

a second camera disposed on the robotic arm, configured to acquire an additional plurality of images,

wherein the additional plurality of images have a viewpoint different from the plurality of images of the field of view and include the charging connector and the charging port, and are used to verify the location of the charging port on the electric vehicle and guide the charging connector towards the charging port.

25. The system of claim 21, further comprising:

a communication link configured to download an update to the electronic database from a remote system upon determining that the update is available.

26. A system for charging an electric vehicle, comprising:

a radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader, configured to identify vehicle information corresponding to the electric vehicle using an RFID tag mounted on the electric vehicle;

an electronic database;

a processor, configured to retrieve from the electronic database a location of a charging port on the electric vehicle based on the vehicle information; and

a robotic arm, configured to move a charging connector according to the retrieved location to engage the charging port of the electric vehicle to charge a battery.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising:

an actuator disposed on the robotic arm, configured to open a door covering the charging port of the electric vehicle prior to engaging the charging connector into the charging port, and close the door covering the charging port upon disengaging the charging connector from the charging port.

28. The system of claim 26, further comprising:

a camera configured to acquire a plurality of images of a field of view, wherein

the processor is further configured to determine whether the electric vehicle has entered the field of view based on an analysis of the plurality of images, extract a plurality of features of the electric vehicle from each image, and track a position and pose of the electric vehicle while the electric vehicle is in motion using the extracted features.

29. The system of claim 26, further comprising:

a camera disposed on the robotic arm, configured to acquire a plurality of images, wherein the plurality of images include the charging connector and the charging port, and are used to verify the location of the charging port on the electric vehicle and guide the charging connector towards the charging port.

30. The system of claim 26, further comprising:

a communication link configured to download an update to the electronic database from a remote system upon determining that the update is available.

31. The system of claim 26, wherein the RFID reader is configured to receive customer billing information from the RFID tag mounted on the electric vehicle and transmit the customer billing information to a remote billing system.

32. A computer-readable storage medium embodying instructions executed by a processor to perform a method for charging an electric vehicle, comprising:

acquiring a plurality of images of a field of view while in a vacant state;

detecting whether the electric vehicle has entered the field of view based on an analysis of the plurality of images while in the vacant state;

initiating a tracking state upon detecting that the electric vehicle has entered the field of view;

tracking a position and pose of the electric vehicle while the electric vehicle is in motion based on a plurality of features of the electric vehicle extracted from each image while in the tracking state;

initiating an identify state upon detecting that the electric vehicle is no longer in motion;

identifying a matching vehicle model candidate in a database using the position and pose of the electric vehicle in each image while in the identify state;

initiating a connect state upon identifying a matching vehicle model candidate;

verifying whether a charging port on the electric vehicle is in an expected location based on a most recently acquired image while in the connect state; and

engaging a charging connector into the charging port upon verifying that the charging port is in the expected location while in the connect state.

33. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, further comprising:

initiating a charging state upon engaging the charging connector into the charging port;

charging a battery in the electric vehicle while in the charging state;

monitoring the charging of the battery while in the charging state;

initiating a disengage state upon completion of charging the battery; and

disengaging the charging connector from the charging port while in the disengage state.

34. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 33, further comprising:

initiating a departing state upon disengaging the charging connector from the charging port;

tracking a location of the electric vehicle until the electric vehicle is no longer in the field of view while in the departing state; and

initiating the vacant state upon determining that the electric vehicle is no longer in the field of view.

35. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, further comprising:

establishing a track for at least one of the plurality of features based on a comparison of the at least one feature in a current image with a corresponding feature in a previous image.