Abstract

Smart parking lots are smart places capable of supporting both parking and charging services for electric vehicles (EVs). In order to manage EV charging, the parking lot local controller (PLLC) requires data exchange with EV charging stations (EVCSs) through communication infrastructures. However, data losses and communication delays are unavoidable and may significantly degrade the system performance. This work aims to investigate the underlying communication networks for remote monitoring of EVCSs in a smart campus parking lot. The communication network consists of two subnetworks: parking area network (PAN) and campus area network (CAN). PAN covers communication among EVs, charging stations and PLLC, while CAN enables dedicated communication between PLLCs and a global controller of the university. As one of the major obstacles in EV system is the lack of unified communication architecture to integrate EVCS in the power grid, we develope communication models for the in-vehicle system and EVCSs based on logical node concept of IEC 61850 standard. Furthermore, we implement network models for EVCSs using OPNET modeler. Different communication technologies and configurations are considered in modeling and simulations, and end-to-end delay is evaluated and discussed.