Four Ways Ultra-Wideband Is Great For Electric Vehicle Charging

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is poised to offer huge benefits to vehicle OEMs when it comes to electric vehicle (EV) charging — and that is just the beginning. Read on to learn how integrating this versatile technology can help deliver innovative functionality now and in the future.

UWB has proven to be a game-changing technology for the automotive industry, with smart car access as one of the most popular use cases. But UWB is good for more than just accessing your car with the digital key on your phone. Recent advancements in combining secure and precise real-time localization with short-range radar allow OEMs to transform a single UWB-based system into a multi-purpose platform — enabling multiple use cases with the same hardware.

New UWB Advancements Bring More Functionality

Due to the new UWB advancements, OEMs can leverage their smart car access system to also deliver features like child presence detection (CPD), seat belt reminder and kick-sensing for trunk opening. This streamlines development and enables features to be added through software updates — reducing total cost of ownership and accelerating time-to-market.

Soon, UWB will be available for electric vehicle charging. If you are already using UWB for another feature, you can use the same infrastructure to ease the four most common ways to charge an EV.

Four Ways to Use UWB for EV Charging

Manual EV Charging

In manual EV charging, UWB technology determines the relative position of the charging infrastructure to the car and guides the driver to the manual charger. The driver then connects the charger to the car. In this case, the charger can also supply personalized information such as “Good morning Thomas” or the status of the car battery after authenticating the driver. UWB can also be used to automatically unlock, open, close and lock the charging flap.

Underbody Automated Conductive EV Charging

With UWB transceivers on the vehicle and charger, the precise position of the charger in relation to the vehicle is determined. The vehicle can then be parked precisely in the operating area of the robot charger. As soon as the vehicle is parked in the right position, automatic charging can begin.

Side Automated Conductive EV Charging

This type of charging is similar to underbody automated EV charging. The main difference is that the charger typically used for manual charging can, with a robot arm, be reused for automated EV charging. The robot arm uses UWB technology to precisely locate where to connect the charger on the side of the vehicle and performs the charging.

Wireless EV Charging

In wireless EV charging, UWB aligns a magnetic coil on the vehicle’s underside with the charging coil in the charging pad. After positioning of the car, resonant electromagnetic induction is used to transmit electrical energy. This process is known as inductive charging. Due to the air gap between the charging coils, it is even more critical that the vehicle and charging pad are well aligned. Using UWB technology helps ensure this.

Since UWB can also be used in radar mode (as shown in use cases of child presence detection and kick-sensing), the technology can further be utilized for living object detection during the charging process. In this case, the system will turn off when endangered objects are in close vicinity. This is a mandatory feature for wireless charging systems.

Ideal Technology for EV Charging

UWB technology enables the precise and secure real-time localization that EV charging requires. While there are other ways to implement positioning for EV charging, UWB provides a very high level of security, performance, localization accuracy and cost efficiency. Plus, UWB is a well-established technology in the automotive industry (due to smart car access) with standards that are readily available.

Expanding an Established UWB Platform

NXP makes UWB technology available through its Trimension portfolio – a rich collection of UWB solutions enabling secure fine ranging across automotive, mobile and IoT devices. The fine ranging and positioning capabilities of Trimension products bring precise location and convenience to a variety of use cases, including secure access control, indoor positioning, device-to-device communication and item tracking.

Trimension NCJ29D6 is the first monolithic UWB chip for automotive markets that combines secure localization and short-range radar with an integrated MCU, allowing OEMs to use one UWB system for multiple use cases. Integrated by major automotive OEMs, devices using this single-chip are expected to be on the road in model year 2025 vehicles.

Get More From Your UWB Investment

While it is clear that smart car access is one of the most popular UWB use cases, there is much more to be leveraged from this technology. Vehicle OEMs should think of UWB as an integral technology that can be used to enable array of current and future functionalities. Next to smart car access, child presence detection and kick-sensing, EV charging is precisely one of those functionalities.

To learn more about UWB and how it can be used to improve EV charging use cases, visit nxp.com/uwb or reach out to your local NXP sales representative.

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