Heterogeneous LPWAN Communication for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Abstract

Many countries worldwide are set to include Electric Vehicles (EV) as a prime element in transportation policy owing to political polarization to combat climate changes. Circumstances are conducive to a sustainable mobility paradigm and have accelerated the adoption of EVs. The situation demands the deployment of charging infrastructure at a faster pace. Smart Grid provides the pervasive support for the deployment of charge stations. But the charging infrastructure should scale beyond the frontiers of metropolitan geography. The paper proposes a heterogeneous network to support mobility to EV users utilizing the paradigm of the Internet of Things (IoT). A heterogeneous ad-hoc network of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) and mobile data communication is proposed to support mobility and scalability of the infrastructure. The proposed ad-hoc communication infrastructure utilizes LoRaWAN, a promising LPWAN technology characterized by a long-range at a narrow bandwidth. LoRaWAN employs Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) in its physical layer. The paper peeps into standards and protocols supporting Smart Grid and EV charge infrastructure. An SNR characteristic of LoRaWAN is simulated for suitability and Hardware for communication node is proposed.