Hyundai Motor Group has announced the development of an innovative automatic charging robot (ACR) for electric vehicles (EVs). In a newly released video, the ACR is shown in action, plugging a cable into an EV’s charging port and removing it again once charging is complete. The ACR is a one-arm robot, designed to improve convenience and accessibility for EV users, particularly those with mobility barriers.
The ACR technology is an example of Hyundai Motor Group’s advanced robot technology, which has been developed with a variety of factors in mind, including parking location, charging port shape, weather, potential obstacles, and the weight of the charging cable. In order for the robot to securely fasten a charger to the charging port, software technology that can simultaneously calculate these multiple variables is required. To this end, the Group has developed an algorithm that applies 3D camera-based AI technology to robots.
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According to Dong Jin Hyun, Head of Robotics Lab, Hyundai Motor Group, “The ACR will help to make EV charging easier and more convenient, especially in dark environments. It will also improve accessibility, particularly for people with mobility barriers, as charging cables become thicker and heavier to enable high-speed charging. We will continue developing the ACR for increased safety and more convenience, so that all EV customers can soon benefit from using it at charging stations.”
To evaluate the performance of the ACR in various conditions, Hyundai Motor Group’s engineers built a bespoke outdoor electric vehicle charging station at its R&D center. As a result, the ACR has secured a waterproof and dustproof grade of IP65, and its performance has been greatly improved so that it can be stably operated even in extreme environments. In addition, engineers have installed a safety pole with a built-in laser sensor around the robot to prevent possible accidents by enabling it to detect stationary and moving obstacles.
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Hyundai Motor Group expects that the ACR will significantly increase the convenience of EV charging, and if combined with autonomous parking control systems in the future, it could improve utilization by sequentially charging several parked vehicles. The ACR will be on display at Hyundai Motor’s exhibition booth during the 2023 Seoul Mobility Show, held at KINTEX in Ilsan-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, from March 31 to April 9.
