Automated Park and Charge: Concept and Energy Demand Calculation

In this paper we are presenting the concept of automated park and charge functions in different use scenarios. The main scenario is automated park and charge in production and the other use scenario is within automated valet parking in parking garages. The automated park and charge in production is developed within the scope of the publicly funded project E-Self. The central aim of the project is the development and integration of automated driving at the end-of-line in the production at Ford Motor Company's manufacturing plant in Cologne. The driving function thereby is mostly based upon automated valet driving with an infrastructure based perception and action planning. Especially for electric vehicles the state of charge of the battery is critical, since energy is needed for all testing and driving operations at end-of-line. In addition long shipping times require in combination with a specific state-of-charge requirement at customer delivery a recharging within the production facility. This recharge process is also an automated process with a robot and requires direct connection to the driving function. Main scope of this paper is the introduction of an energy demand calculation and estimation for the necessary charging operations. Furthermore we are applying the developed tool in order to discuss the impact of different vehicles, seasons and potentials in the production line.