A Proof-of-Concept Demonstration for the Transportation Electrification Education

In this paper, we present a proof-of-concept demonstration for the electrification of transportation, aiming to create great opportunities for integrating research and education. Multiple unmanned ground electric vehicles are emulated using Lego Mindstorms EV3 education kits. We implement traffic logic (e.g., path tracking algorithm), voice and gesture control, and collision avoidance functionality into each vehicle. Every vehicle is able to communicate with each other and self-navigate on a 240-sqft platform using local measurement (e.g., touch sensor, color sensor, and infrared sensor). Multiple vehicles are used to simulate the real-world traffic scenarios. Two demo-scale plug-in and wireless charging stations are also built up to mimic the dynamic charging for electric vehicles. Meanwhile, each vehicle can wirelessly communicate with the centralized transportation coordinator to find the best charging spot depending on location, user preference, and real-time pricing. In addition, each vehicle is equipped with an on-board battery monitoring system to measure the real-time battery state (e.g., current, voltage, and temperature) and estimate the battery state-of-charge (SOC). The user-friendly graphical interface is developed in Labview for each component of proof-of-concept demonstration. Most importantly, this demonstration is fully compatible with a variety of general purpose engineering software (e.g., Matlab, and Labview), and creates great opportunities for integrating research and education in Smart Grid and intelligent transportation systems.