IoT for Electric Vehicle Monitoring & Management

As air pollution levels rise and environmental degradation increases, urban spaces are looking for ways to tackle this problem. One of the key ways to control air pollution in cities is to reduce vehicular pollution. Electric vehicles (EVs) are an innovative step in this direction. Electric vehicles are hi-tech machines that bank on a lot of data to deliver optimum performance. The performance parameters include monitoring speed, acceleration, mileage, battery management, charging, fault alert, and predictive maintenance systems. IoT plays a large role in the monitoring of these electric vehicles.

The Role of IoT in Electric Vehicle Management

Let's take a look at each aspect of an IoT Electric vehicle management system, and the ways in which they add to the performance of electric vehicles.

Battery Management System

The basic functions of the Battery Management System (BMS) are to monitor and control the battery processes. This includes the charging and discharging cycle, thereby ensuring the battery health and minimizing the risk of battery damage by ensuring that optimized energy is being delivered to power the vehicle. The monitoring circuit in BMS monitors the key parameters of the battery. This includes the voltage, current, and temperature during both charging and discharging situations. It estimates parameters such as the power, State of Charge (SoC), State of Health (SoH) and ensures healthiness based on the measurement. Internet of Things (IoT) plays a major role in monitoring and control as it enables the remote data logging facility for battery parameters, conditions, etc.

EV manufacturers are increasingly opting for high-quality Li-ion battery packs due to their longer life and better range of high energy density. Besides these benefits, there are some drawbacks too. 

In scenarios where the battery malfunctions, the onboard sensor data obtained through IoT can help in managing the challenges. Then, these can be run through AI-based models for performance evaluation. Tests can be conducted on some Li-ions to assess the patterns of partial and complete charging and discharging. Models are characterized using the data collected from each step. These are integrated with AI before deploying on a server. The EV sends crucial sensor data to the server, providing insights on the next course of action and performance. We can say that the EV’s state is monitored by the server.

Safety and Smart Driving

The use of IoT also enables real-time monitoring of the vehicles and its key components. It aids in preventive maintenance offered by the technology, making the users find it more reliable.

IoT devices embedded in EVs can provide users with the following features:

• It can gauge the absolute and relative parameters of the driver, such as speed, acceleration, and others, for providing real-time tips to ensure better performance.
• Theft can be prevented through real-time tracking, geo-fencing, and immobilization. Thus, there will be enhanced safety and security to reduce the dependence on insurance.
• It will monitor the vehicle performance data, based on which EV and battery OEMs can improve the products. The parameters include a range for each charge, utilization of a vehicle, performance differences based on geography, weather conditions, age, and alteration in range for each charge over a certain period.

Fault Alert and Preventive Maintenance System

Being a high-tech machine, an electric vehicle is bound to experience technical glitches. IoT-based fault alert systems help to alert vehicle drivers regarding the EV faults, giving them time to act and address them.

Although EVs are carefully designed, there can be situations where the components might falter or fail. To predict this, AI algorithms and remote IoT data can play a key role. This helps in alerting the EV users ahead of time to fix any possible issues or avert a total breakdown. This will lead to a better customer experience as they will find it to be reliable.

Keeping in view the overall temperature and moisture conditions in various geographies and monitoring the remote performance is extremely important. This will not only help resolve the issues quickly, but it will also provide a sense of comfort and security to the users.

Telematics Data

With the help of IoT-based telematics technology, data is collected when connected to vehicle sensors, and it can be rapidly displayed through widgets, send instant notifications, and generate automatic reports. 

Here are the beneficial factors of using telematics for remote monitoring electric vehicles:

• Battery Usage Data: Electric vehicles that have telematics enable users to track real-time data on battery usage. This data analysis provides insights that help to improve battery life. It also allows monitoring of vital parameters like voltage, current, and temperature to avoid battery breakdowns. Using this IoT device battery usage of EV can be recorded and transferred to a remote server that can allow you to personalize the battery configuration and improve your best charging practices.

• Charging Report: The use of telematics in electric vehicles helps to generate reports on complete charging sessions of the vehicles that might have gone through their lifetime.  The charging report includes the time duration, location of the charger station, and percentage of charge received by the vehicles.

• Nearby Charging Stations Alert: Electric vehicle users face challenges like knowing their state-of-charge(SOC) to plan when and where to charge. Electric vehicle monitoring solutions with telematics notify the user regarding the low battery level of the vehicles along with the location of nearby charging stations.

• Driver Behavior Data: Electric vehicle remote monitoring system with telematics not only monitors and analyzes the data of electric vehicle performance but also concentrates on the behavioral data of EV drivers. Telematics offers instant feedback to fleet managers through IoT smartphone apps on driver’s behavior changes to improve vehicle safety.

Challenges of IoT in Electric Vehicle Management

Now that we have discussed the advantages of IoT for monitoring in electric vehicles, we must also address possible challenges:

Cybersecurity

The use of a high amount of data sent over a network makes this data vulnerable to cyber-attacks and data thefts. Therefore, the IoT networks that EV system data is based on should be strengthened and made more foolproof.

High Cost

IoT systems in EV are quite advanced and have high installation and running costs. The future holds the possibility for more R&D in this area to reduce costs.

Weighing the Benefits & Challenges

Overall, IoT plays a large role in monitoring electric vehicles. The performance parameters include monitoring speed, acceleration, mileage, battery management, charging, fault alert, and predictive maintenance systems. However, its challenges, such as cybersecurity and cost must be weighed carefully. Electric vehicles are an innovative step towards better control over air pollution, and IoT plays a critical part.