Volkswagen has unveiled a real working prototype of an autonomous charging robot for electric cars – something it has been planning for years.
Last year, VW unveiled a concept for a charging robot for electric cars.
They had a vision of a robot equipped with a DC charging system that could “receive” batteries, connect to them, and bring them to parked electric cars to charge autonomously while in a parking lot.
The idea is an interesting solution to the problem of charging electric vehicles in large residential complexes.
Instead of building charging stations for every parking space in an underground garage, one could simply build battery and have these autonomous robots bring the “packages” to electric vehicles when needed.
German automaker Volkswagen describes how its autonomous charging system works:
“The charging robot – launched via an app or Car-to-X communication – operates completely autonomously. It independently navigates to the vehicle to be charged and communicates with it: from opening the charging socket flap to connecting the plug and disconnecting it. The entire charging process takes place without any human. To charge multiple vehicles simultaneously, the mobile robot moves a mobile energy storage unit to the vehicle, connects it and then uses this energy storage unit to charge the vehicle and repeats the process to charge the other vehicles. Once the vehicle is fully charged, the robot collects the mobile energy and transports it to the central charging station.”
While it may all sound like a no-brainer, it actually offers some significant advantages in certain situations, such as large parking garages.
You can reduce the cost of converting the entire parking space into electric vehicle charging points by limiting the installation costs at the station for these robots and their batteries.
Source of information: electrek.co
