Proposal of Automatic Power Plug Insertion Control for Electric Vehicle with In-Wheel-Motors

Electric Vehicles (EVs) have attracted significant attention, and users are enjoying increasing opportunities to recharge EVs by themselves in parking lots. However, the task of power plug insertion is a heavy burden for users particularly with weak power, because the power supply cables for EVs, carrying a large amount of electricity, are heavy and thick. In this paper, we propose a control method of automatic power plug insertion by applying the reaction force/moment control. The reaction force/moment is estimated with a driving force observer and a yaw-moment observer. These estimates are fed back to regulate the reaction force to the desired value and the reaction moment from the power plug to 0. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately estimate the reaction force/moment and control them appropriately. These results demonstrate that proposed method can achieve automatic power plug insertion.