SOM II, Sub-project: Monitoring of charging points
On an unusually beautiful day in early October 2020, some of the participants in the SOM project met at Mårtenstorget in Lund to connect modules with radar sensors at two of the charging points for electric cars. With this, it is possible to determine remotely whether the parking space is occupied by a car parked without charging.
Finanisär
In several places in Lund there are charging points where electric vehicles can both park and charge. The power ring is one of the operators providing charging and it has been noted that both electric vehicles and fossil-fuel vehicles park in charging places without using the charging facility. To find a way to ensure that digital services can show whether the site is occupied or vacant, the SOM project tried to have sensors on two charging poles at Mårtenstorget.
“The exciting thing is that through this we can detect if a car is parked without charging at the charging point,” said Håkan Skarrie of Kraftringen in an interview from October 2020. Previously, we have only been able to determine whether someone is charging or not.
The project used Acconeer's XM122 module, which contains a radar sensor that is small and has a long battery life. The intention was that the modules would be connected to the Bluetooth mesh network that was already built around Mårtenstorget in another sub-project within SOM. The mesh network consists of devices in almost twenty electrical cabinets, and the devices communicate with each other. However, at the start of the project, the connection was made temporarily using Bluetooth Low Energy, BLE.
All data was then sent via a BLE Gateway to Sensative's sensor platform Yggio. The step next could be to link the information to digital services that display information about available charging locations.
In this sub-project, Kraftringen, which provides charging poles, Sensative with the platform Yggio, Acconeer with the sensor module, MiThings, which makes communication from the sensor to the Yggio platform, and DivM, which handles mechanics, sensor assembly and more. The work is done together with a parking project in the parking house Färgaren, and this part also includes LKP and ApparkingSpot.
What was the result?
The solution works and shows if cars are parked at the charging points without charging. Sensor values are sent via Yggio to Kraftringen for analysis.
How is the project taken forward?
Reported values could serve as a basis for services showing available charging locations.
Facts Charging site monitoring:
Subproject of the SOM project, funded by IoT Sweden, started on September 1, 2017 and ran until December 2020.
Project Time: 2020-02-01 - 2019-10-30
Project Manager: Johan Linden, Mobile Heights
Project partners: Kraftringen, DivM, MiThings, Mobile Heights, Lund Municipality
In the big picture: Knut Mårtensson, MiThings, Euan Muir, DivM, Håkan Skarrie, Kraftringen, Britta Duve Hansen, Mobile Heights, Johan Lindén, Mobile Heights, Magnus Edelberg DivM.
