Smart Contract-based Electric Vehicle Charging: A Practice-based Economy of Things Application

Abstract

In this conceptual research paper, we propose a user-oriented pricing and charging system to handle the inductive electric vehicle (EV) charging process in shared spaces such as office, public parking, housing societies, wireless charging bays by busy roadside or at busy intersections. For the payment mechanism of the proposed charging system to work, we propose here the Economy of Things (EoT) paradigm with a distributed ledger technology approach, for example, blockchain. A mobile app is proposed to handle the user authentication method to initiate the charging process, where sensors in EVs are used for measuring energy consumption, and based on a microcontroller, establish data communication with the mobile app. Our proposed EV charging system, where EVs can self-negotiate with charging stations, brings together energy, smart contract and mobility to create an EoT solution representing a major step forward for the smart connected world.