CN111591158A

CN111591158A - Charging station system supporting charging of multiple vehicles

Info

Publication number: CN111591158A
Application number: CN202010708129.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 周凤春; 王伟
Original assignee: Phoenix Contact Asia Pacific Nanjing Co Ltd
Current assignee: Phoenix Contact Asia Pacific Nanjing Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-07-22
Filing date: 2020-07-22
Publication date: 2020-08-28

Abstract

The present invention relates to a vehicle charging station system supporting charging of a plurality of vehicles, comprising: the charging module is used for converting external power input into charging power for charging the vehicle; a charging interface comprising a plurality of charging plugs including a first charging plug and a second charging plug, each charging plug being coupled to the charging module; the charging management module is used for executing a common charging process according to a preset or user-selected common charging mode when the charging connection is simultaneously established between the vehicle charging station system and a plurality of vehicles including the first vehicle and the second vehicle, wherein the common charging mode comprises a first common mode, and the charging management module firstly charges the first vehicle according to the charging requirement of the first vehicle and starts to charge the second vehicle according to the charging requirement of the second vehicle when the charging condition of the first vehicle reaches a preset target.

Description

Charging station system supporting charging of multiple vehicles

Technical Field

The invention relates to a vehicle charging station system capable of supporting charging of multiple vehicles, in particular to a charging station system capable of realizing charging of multiple electric vehicles under the conditions of low equipment power and power grid load.

Background

With the development of new energy automobile technology, electric automobiles enter more and more families, and many families even have a plurality of electric automobiles. How to ensure efficient charging of a plurality of household electric vehicles is also a problem facing more and more households.

The supporting facilities for charging electric vehicles are generally called charging stations or charging piles. A conventional charging pile is connected to a power grid, converts the power of the power grid into power that can be used for charging, and delivers the power to a vehicle through a charging plug. A commonly used charging plug is called a charging gun because it is shaped like a refueling gun head of a gas station.

Traditional domestic electric pile that fills is only furnished with one rifle that charges. For a single household user, if a plurality of household electric vehicles need to be charged by one charging pile, a manual switching mode of sequentially inserting charging guns into different vehicles is required, which is obviously inconvenient, and if the charging guns are not timely pulled out and inserted into a second vehicle after the electric quantity of a first vehicle is full, resource waste is undoubtedly caused.

The inconvenience can be eliminated to some extent by installing a plurality of independent charging piles for one household user, but the mode can increase the load of the power grid, and the capital investment of the household user in equipment purchasing and installation is increased, and the resource waste is also caused. To solve this problem, a charging pile equipped with two charging guns has been proposed in the art to facilitate the use of users. However, such charging piles essentially place two sets of relatively independent charging devices in one charging pile body. When the charging pile is used for charging a single vehicle, the actual utilization rate of internal equipment is only half, and when two vehicles are charged simultaneously, the generated power grid load is the same as that of two independent charging piles. Therefore, the charging pile does not effectively utilize internal equipment when charging a single vehicle, and does not realize reasonable control of power grid load when charging two vehicles simultaneously.

There is a need for a charging station system supporting charging of multiple vehicles, which can establish charging connections with multiple vehicles simultaneously, and can flexibly select an efficient charging mode according to the charging requirements, charging schedule and other parameters of the vehicles, so as to maximally utilize the charging capability of the charging station system without increasing the load of the power grid.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a charging pile capable of realizing safe, orderly and efficient charging of a plurality of electric automobiles under the conditions of low equipment power and power grid load.

In order to solve the above problems of the prior art, the present invention provides a charging station system for supporting charging of multiple vehicles, including: the charging module is used for converting external power input into charging power for charging the vehicle; a charging interface comprising a plurality of charging plugs including a first charging plug and a second charging plug, each charging plug being coupled to the charging module; the charging management module is used for executing a common charging process according to a preset or user-selected common charging mode when the charging connection is simultaneously established between the vehicle charging station system and a plurality of vehicles including the first vehicle and the second vehicle, wherein the common charging mode comprises a first common mode, and the charging management module firstly charges the first vehicle according to the charging requirement of the first vehicle and starts to charge the second vehicle according to the charging requirement of the second vehicle when the charging condition of the first vehicle reaches a preset target. In the above vehicle charging station system, in the first common mode, when the charging condition of the first vehicle does not reach the predetermined target but the charging power supplied to the first vehicle is lower than the full output power of the charging station system, the charge management module supplies the remaining available output power to the second vehicle. In the above vehicle charging station system, in the first common mode, when the first vehicle is not fully charged but the actual charging power of the first vehicle is decreased, the charge management module supplies the released power to the second vehicle.

In the above vehicle charging station system, in the first common mode, the predetermined target of the charging condition includes one of: the first vehicle is full; and the first vehicle has been charged to a predetermined percentage of the nominal full charge.

In the above vehicle charging station system, the first vehicle is one of: a vehicle connected to a predetermined charging plug; a vehicle connected to a user-selected charging plug; a vehicle connected to a charging station first; a vehicle newly connected to a charging station; and vehicles having a particular vehicle model or identification number.

In the above vehicle charging station system, in the first common mode, when the vehicle charging station system establishes a charging connection with three or more vehicles, after the charging operation of the first vehicle is completed, the second vehicle is regarded as the first vehicle arrangement to be charged, and the third vehicle is regarded as the second vehicle arrangement to be charged.

In the above vehicle charging station system, the common charging mode further includes a second common mode in which the charge management module determines a first energy demand and a second energy demand required to fully charge the first vehicle and the second vehicle, respectively, and allocates the charging power to the first vehicle and the charging power to the second vehicle based on a relationship between the first energy demand and the second energy demand.

In the above vehicle charging station system, in the second common mode, the charge management module updates the first energy demand and the second energy demand periodically or in real time, and reallocates the charging power to the first vehicle and the charging power to the second vehicle based on the updated first energy demand and the updated second energy demand.

In the above vehicle charging station system, the common charging mode further includes a third common mode in which the charging management module distributes the charging power to the first vehicle and the second vehicle simultaneously according to a predetermined rule.

In the above vehicle charging station system, the charge management module exits the common charging flow in response to an interrupt event.

In the above vehicle charging station system, the interruption event includes one of: before the execution of the common charging process is finished, actually disconnecting any one of the first charging plug and the second charging plug from the vehicle; an interrupt indication from a user; user reselection of the common charging mode; user-defined interrupt events.

The invention can realize the following beneficial effects:

the charging station system can meet the requirement of safe and orderly charging of a plurality of electric vehicles on the premise that the charging station system only adopts one set of charging power module, reduces the load of a power grid, improves the use efficiency of the charging station system, and avoids resource waste caused by full charge and shutdown of the electric vehicles. In addition, the user only need before charging simultaneously will charge the rifle insert the charging vehicle can, when avoiding only one the rifle that charges, need the manual work to switch the puzzlement that the charging vehicle brought for the user, promote user experience.

Drawings

FIG. 1A illustrates an exemplary vehicle charging station system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 1B illustrates a charging plug and a charging receptacle corresponding thereto equipped with the vehicle charging station system of fig. 1A.

Fig. 2 shows a functional block diagram of the vehicle charging station system shown in fig. 1A.

Fig. 3 illustrates an exemplary common charging flow based on the vehicle charging station system shown in fig. 2.

Detailed Description

In the following description, the invention is described with reference to various embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the embodiments may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other alternative and/or additional methods, materials, or components. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of embodiments of the invention. Similarly, for purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the invention. However, the invention may be practiced without specific details. Further, it should be understood that the embodiments shown in the figures are illustrative representations and are not necessarily drawn to scale.

Fig. 1A shows an exemplary vehicle charging station system 1, which may also be referred to as a charging post. The charging station system has a charging module (for converting and outputting an external power source), a charging management unit, and two charging plugs (charging guns) for charging the vehicle. Fig. 1B illustrates a charging plug (charging gun) equipped with the vehicle charging station system of fig. 1A and a charging receptacle corresponding thereto. The charging receptacle is typically mounted on a vehicle (the vehicle is not shown here). When the charging gun and the charging receptacle on the vehicle are coupled, the power output by the vehicle charging station system is charged to the vehicle. The vehicle suitable for charging may be any one of various vehicles using electric power as driving power or driving power, such as a new energy vehicle and a hybrid vehicle.

In some cases, the charging gun may not be directly plugged into a charging socket on the vehicle body, but plugged into an adapter for charging the vehicle, with the output of the adapter further plugged into the charging socket on the vehicle body. It is to be understood that in this case too the charging gun and the vehicle establish a charging connection.

Figure 2 shows a block diagram of one of the functional blocks of the vehicle charging station system shown in figure 1A. The vehicle charging system may include a charging management module 200, a charging module 300, and a charging interface 400 from a functional perspective. The charging interface 400 includes two or more charging guns (charging gun 1, charging gun 2 …) for establishing a charging connection with the vehicle. The charging module 300 is coupled to the ac input 250 and converts the power from the ac input 250 to a charging output suitable for the vehicle charging requirements. The charging output provided by the charging module 300 may be coupled to the charging gun of the charging interface 400 under the control of the charging management module 200. By way of example and not limitation, in most implementations, the charge management module 200 is implemented in circuitry named "host 100". The functions of the charging management module 200 may be implemented by a main controller or other logic component of the host 100, and the main controller may correspond to a dedicated hardware circuit in the host circuitry of the entity, or a general-purpose processing device (CPU, MCU, etc.) executing software program codes, or may correspond to a combination of dedicated hardware and software. In addition to the charging management module 200, the host 100 may further include an input module 130, a display module 120, and may include an interface for enabling communication with the authentication device 140. In the present application, unless otherwise specified, "host" refers to a host having a function corresponding to the charging management module 200 of the present application, and an action performed mainly by the host 100 refers to an action performed or involved in the completion by the charging management module 200 in the host 100.

The host 100 also includes a power supply module 110 to obtain the power required for its operation from the ac input 250.

The charging management module 200 receives an input from a user through the input module 130, provides a visual interaction to the user through the display module 120, and performs a user authentication operation through the authentication device 140 (e.g., a card reader). The user authentication operation may be the authentication of a special stored value card such as an electronic card, a bank card such as a credit card and debit card of the user, or the authentication of any other account information (such as a social account and a power grid user account). The charging management module 200 may further interact with a remote database or data service via the internet, telecommunications network, etc. to perform authentication. In some cases, the authentication device 140 interacts with a remote database or data service through the internet, a telecommunication network, and the like to complete authentication, and sends corresponding information to the charging management module 200 after authentication is successful.

In one implementation, the charging management module 200 is implemented at least partially based on local or remote software code, i.e., the charging management module 200 obtains the functionality associated with the present invention through local or remote execution of the software code. In another implementation, the charge management module 200 is implemented at least partially based on hardware circuitry, i.e., the charge management module 200 contains dedicated hardware circuitry to achieve the functionality associated with the present invention.

Fig. 3 shows an exemplary common charging flow based on the vehicle charging station system shown in fig. 2. As used herein, a "common charging process" may be understood as a process in which a vehicle charging station system establishes a charging connection with two or more vehicles and charges the vehicles establishing the charging connection. After the common charging process is started in step 510, step 520 is performed first, i.e., it is determined whether the authentication is completed. The authentication operation may be performed by the user at the host. The user can carry out card swiping authentication operation through the authentication equipment. After authentication is complete, the common charging process proceeds to step 530, where the user plugs the charging gun into the charging receptacle of the vehicle. In one implementation, after the charging gun is inserted into the charging receptacle, the charging station system/charging pile and the vehicle will perform a handshake detection, and determine whether the handshake detection was successful at step 540 where the charging process is shared. If the handshake detection is successful, the host 100 may give information confirming establishment of the charging connection to the user through the display module 120. If the handshake detection is unsuccessful, host 100 may issue a corresponding prompt to the user via display module 120.

The handshake detection process and other processes related to information interaction and control between the charging station system and the vehicle according to the embodiments of the present invention may be completed by various known or mature technologies in the prior art (for example, refer to technologies defined in technical standard GB/T18487.12015 and technical standard GB/T27930-2015), and therefore, detailed processes thereof are not described again.

In one implementation, after the handshake detection of the first charging gun is successful, the host 100 may ask the user whether to charge more vehicles through the display module 120, and if the user chooses to charge more vehicles, the host 100 waits for the user to insert another charging gun into the vehicle outlet and perform the handshake detection again.

After the charging connection between the charging gun and all vehicles is established (it can be confirmed that the charging connection is established with all vehicles based on the input of the user; in addition, when all charging guns are used, the host can also automatically confirm that the charging connection is established with all vehicles), the host 100 can execute step 550 of sharing the charging flow to receive the charging demand input. The charging demand input may come from a user input. When the user selects to charge two or more vehicles, the host 100 may prompt the user to select a common charging mode, and, depending on the particular implementation, may further prompt the user to input other demand parameters, such as charging power to be used for each vehicle, the vehicle that the user wishes to charge preferentially (hereinafter referred to as vehicle 1), and so forth.

After the input of the common charging mode and the corresponding demand parameters is completed, the host 100 executes step 560 of the common charging process to start charging the vehicle 1 according to the charging demand of the vehicle 1. The definition of "vehicle 1" may be a vehicle connected to a predetermined charging plug (e.g., charging gun 1), may be a vehicle selected by a user (e.g., a vehicle to which charging gun 2 is selected as a vehicle to be charged preferentially when the user inputs a charging demand parameter), may be a vehicle that has first established a charging connection with a charging station, may be a vehicle that has newly established a charging connection with a charging station, and may be a vehicle having a specific model or identification number. The charging requirement of the vehicle 1 may be input by the user according to the prompt of the host computer 100, or the host computer 100 may determine itself according to the relevant information of the vehicle 1, or may determine it by means of an appropriate remote service, or may default.

After the host computer 100 starts charging the vehicle 1, the host computer 100 updates the charging parameters in real time at step 570 of the common charging flow to know the charging progress of the vehicle 1. In another alternative implementation, the update to the charging parameters may be periodic rather than real-time. Based on the obtained information of the charging parameters and the like, the common charging flow determines in step 580 whether the vehicle 1 completes charging or meets the charging requirement. The charging requirements may be set by the user or given by the system. The charging of the vehicle 1 will continue until it is determined that the vehicle 1 has completed charging or the charging request is met. The completion of charging (or full charge) of the vehicle 1 may be indicated by explicit feedback from the vehicle 1 (based on industry-established technical standards, the charging station system may obtain information from the vehicle whether the battery is full). Other charging requirements may be, for example, that the vehicle 1 has been charged to a predetermined percentage (e.g., 95%) of the nominal full charge.

In order to make the internal devices of the charging station system function properly, if the determination result in step 580 is negative during the charging of the vehicle 1, that is, the vehicle 1 has not completed charging or has not reached the charging requirement, the common charging process further determines whether the charging station system/charging pile is operating at full power in step 590. If the determination at step 590 is negative, i.e., the charging station system is not operating at full power, then host 100 may further arrange for the remaining available power to be allocated for charging vehicle 2 at step 610 of the shared charging routine. In the actual use process, at the end of the charging process of the vehicle-mounted storage battery, the electric quantity increase rate is reduced. At this point, the vehicle's charging power demand on the charging station has dropped. To more efficiently switch between vehicle 1 and vehicle 2, charge management module 200 of host computer 100 may monitor the actual charging power provided to vehicle 1 by suitable means, and when vehicle 1 is not fully charged, but the actual charging power of vehicle 1 drops, charge management module 200 of host computer 100 provides the released power to vehicle 2.

After the determination result in step 590 is yes, or after step 610 is executed, the common charging process returns to step 570, and the charging parameters are updated in real time.

If the determination of step 580 is yes, i.e., vehicle 1 has completed charging, or has reached other charging requirements, then host 100 may begin charging vehicle 2 in accordance with the charging requirements of vehicle 2 at step 600 of the shared charging routine. The charging requirement of the vehicle 2 may be input by the user according to the prompt of the host computer 100, or may be determined by the host computer 100 according to the relevant information of the vehicle 2, or may be a default. During the charging of the vehicle 2, similar to step 570, the host 100 may update the charging parameters periodically or in real time at step 620 of the common charging process, and then determine whether the vehicle 2 is completely charged or meets the charging requirement given by the user or set by the system at step 630 of the common charging process.

If the determination at step 630 is yes, i.e., vehicle 2 has completed charging, or has reached another charging request, then host 100 will end the common charging mode for vehicle 1 and vehicle 2 at step 640 of the common charging flow, at which point the common charging flow ends. If the determination at step 630 is negative, the shared charging process will continue back to step 620 to update the charging parameters in real time.

In the case where three or more vehicles A, B, C … are connected to the charging station system, after the charging operation for vehicle a (vehicle 1) is completed, if there are two or more vehicles remaining, the host 100 may regard vehicle B as vehicle 1 and vehicle C as vehicle 2, and repeat the aforementioned procedure.

The execution of a "vehicle 1 prioritized" common charging mode is described above with reference to fig. 3. In some implementations, the user may select other common charging modes other than "vehicle 1 takes precedence".

An additional common charging mode is the "vehicle 1&2 synchronous mode". In this common charging mode, host machine 100 will first determine or estimate the energy required to charge each of vehicles 1 and 2, and allocate charging power to vehicle 1 and charging power to vehicle 2 based on the energy requirements of both vehicles.

Determining the energy requirements of vehicle 1 and vehicle 2 may be accomplished using any of a variety of known or established techniques in the art. One technique for determining the energy demand is to obtain an amount of energy from the vehicle that is not yet fully charged, and then determine the energy that needs to be delivered by the charging station system based on the energy conversion efficiency of the charging process. The battery energy curve may be used to determine the energy that needs to be delivered by the charging post based on the simulated or empirical charging power vs. After the energy requirements of vehicles 1 and 2 are known, host 100 may allocate charging power to vehicles 1 and 2 based on the energy requirements of vehicles 1 and 2, such that vehicles 1 and 2 complete the charging target at approximately the same time. In a further implementation, the host computer 100 updates the energy requirements of the vehicles 1 and 2 periodically or in real time, and reallocates the charging power to the vehicle 1 and the charging power to the vehicle 2 based on the updated energy requirements, thereby making the synchronization pattern of the vehicles 1 and 2 more accurate.

Another additional common charging mode is a "pre-distribution mode" in which the main unit 100 simultaneously distributes charging power to the charging gun 1 and the charging gun 2 according to a predetermined rule, for example, the power distributed to the charging gun 1 and the charging gun 2 is equal, or one of the charging gun 1 and the charging gun 2 is set as a quick charging plug, having a larger output power.

In one implementation, the common charging process may be exited in response to a particular interrupt event, regardless of what common charging mode is selected by the user. For example, the interrupt event includes the following cases. Before the execution of the common charging process is finished, if any one of the charging gun 1 and the charging gun 2 is actually disconnected with the vehicle, the common charging process is interrupted, and the charging of the rest single vehicles which are kept connected is continuously finished by adopting a single vehicle charging scheme. An explicit indication from the user may constitute an interrupt. The user may also redefine and select the common charging mode and charging requirements at any time during the common charging process (e.g., redefining vehicles 1 and 2 to have vehicles that were not previously preferentially charged receive preferential charging), which redefines and selects constitutes an interruption to the original common charging process and initiates a new common charging process based on the new requirement parameters. The user can also set other interrupt events as required.

Having thus described the basic concept, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the foregoing disclosure is by way of example only, and is not intended to limit the present application. Various modifications, improvements and adaptations to the present application may occur to those skilled in the art, although not explicitly described herein. Such modifications, improvements and adaptations are proposed in the present application and thus fall within the spirit and scope of the embodiments of the present application.

Claims

1. A charging station system that supports charging of multiple vehicles, comprising:

the charging module is used for converting external power input into charging power for charging the vehicle;

a charging interface comprising a plurality of charging plugs including a first charging plug and a second charging plug, each charging plug being coupled to the charging module;

a charge management module for performing a common charge procedure according to a preset or user-selected common charge mode when the vehicle charging station system and a plurality of vehicles including a first vehicle and a second vehicle simultaneously establish a charge connection,

wherein the common charging mode includes a first common mode in which the charging management module first charges the first vehicle in accordance with a charging demand of the first vehicle and starts charging the second vehicle in accordance with a charging demand of the second vehicle when a charging condition of the first vehicle reaches a predetermined target,

in the first common mode, when the charging condition of the first vehicle does not reach a predetermined target but the charging power supplied to the first vehicle is lower than the full output power of the charging station system, the charge management module supplies the remaining available output power to the second vehicle,

in the first common mode, the charge management module provides the released power to the second vehicle when the first vehicle is not fully charged, but the actual charging power of the first vehicle drops.

2. The charging station system that supports multi-vehicle charging according to claim 1, wherein in the first common mode, the predetermined target of the charging condition comprises one of:

the first vehicle is full; and

the first vehicle has been charged to a predetermined percentage of a nominal full charge.

3. The multi-vehicle charging-enabled charging station system of claim 1, wherein the first vehicle is one of:

a vehicle connected to a predetermined charging plug;

a vehicle connected to a user-selected charging plug;

a vehicle connected to a charging station first;

a vehicle newly connected to a charging station; and

a vehicle having a particular vehicle model or identification number.

4. The charging station system supporting multi-vehicle charging of claim 1, wherein in the first common mode, when the vehicle charging station system establishes a charging connection with three or more vehicles, after a charging operation of the first vehicle is completed, the second vehicle is considered the first vehicle to be scheduled for charging and the third vehicle is considered the second vehicle to be scheduled for charging.

5. The charging station system that supports multi-vehicle charging according to claim 1, wherein the common charging mode further comprises a second common mode in which the charge management module determines a first energy requirement and a second energy requirement required to charge the first vehicle and the second vehicle, respectively, and allocates the charging power to the first vehicle and the charging power to the second vehicle based on a relationship between the first energy requirement and the second energy requirement.

6. The charging station system supporting multi-vehicle charging according to claim 5, wherein in the second common mode, the charging management module updates the first energy demand and the second energy demand periodically or in real time, and reallocates the charging power to the first vehicle and the charging power to the second vehicle based on the updated first energy demand and the updated second energy demand.

7. The charging station system that supports multi-vehicle charging according to claim 1, wherein the common charging mode further comprises a third common mode in which the charging management module distributes charging power to the first vehicle and the second vehicle simultaneously according to a predetermined rule.

8. The charging station system supporting multi-vehicle charging of any of claims 1-7, wherein the charging management module exits the common charging process in response to an interrupt event.

9. The multi-vehicle charging support charging station system of claim 8, wherein the interruption event comprises one of:

before the execution of the common charging process is finished, actually disconnecting any one of the first charging plug and the second charging plug from the vehicle;

an interrupt indication from a user;

user reselection of the common charging mode;

user-defined interrupt events.