Transportation systems management considering dynamic wireless charging electric vehicles: Review and prospects

Abstract

This paper reviews and prospects the research in transportation systems management with the presence of dynamic wireless charging (DWC) electric vehicles (EVs). DWC is based on inductive coupling that allows EVs to get charged wirelessly by driving over the coils installed in the ground. Thus, DWC is also known as ‘charging-while-driving’ or ‘in-motion charging’, which is regarded as one of the most promising charging solutions for EVs. The road that is equipped with wireless chargers underneath its surface is called a wireless charging lane (WCL). The deployment of WCLs will lead to a profound change in the field of transportation systems management. We give a review of recent studies on related topics including WCL allocation and related decisions, energy consumption of EVs considering WCLs, and pricing of EVs for the use of DWC facilities. Based on the analysis of the existing studies, we identify the needs for more flexible WCL design and allocation models, as well as novel ways that incorporate the complexities in energy consumption by EVs and routing behaviour into traffic network analysis. In addition, we emphasise the research opportunities of dynamic traffic modelling and real-time control considering DWC and EVs with state-of-charge (SOC) constraints. A high-level dynamic system model and a general model-based control problem are formulated in this regard. Finally, we foresee a demand for finer traffic management in the WCL environment enabled by emerging technologies such as the internet of vehicles (IoV) and autonomous driving.