A fundamental problem with regard to the dissemination of eMobility is the lack of a comprehensive charging infrastructure. At the same time, investing into the expansion of the charging infrastructure is risky due to the limited number of potential users. Within the CrowdStrom project we seek to overcome this so-called chicken-and-egg problem by adopting the idea of sharing economy: People having a private charging station are invited and incentivized to open up their charging facility to the public and by leveraging the potential of idle charging stations the establishment of a nationwide charging infrastructure becomes feasible.

In order to fully exploit the potential of privately held charging stations, also "dumb" wall box charging stations need to be considered which requires additional hardware to enable the integration into the charging network. The connection to the charging network is indispensable to allow for reservation, authorization and proper billing. To showcase the feasibility of extending a wall box with the required hardware and functionality, a prototype is to be developed in course of this thesis.

At first, the student working on this topic ought to get familiar with the domain of electric mobility, especially the charging process. Based on a Raspberry Pi, a hardware platform needs to be designed that is capable of connecting a wall box to the charging infrastructure network. For instance, the process of authentication will be based on RFID technology and communication is carried out over an internet connection via the mobile phone network. Therefore, the raspberry pi needs to be equipped with additional shields and corresponding software needs to be developed, set up and evaluated.

Students interested in this topic should bring along:

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  Enthusiasm for electrical mobility
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  Expertise in Java programming
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  Interest in Raspberry Pi development
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  Willingness to learn about new technology

For a discussion or additional information on this topic, please feel free to contact me personally.