Contract-based approach to provide electric vehicles with charging service in heterogeneous networks

Recently, mobile charging stations (MCSs) have attracted more attentions compared with fixed charging stations (FCSs). Electric vehicles (EVs) can be easily provided with charging service through MCSs. However, most of existing approaches cannot be properly used to design the optimal pricing strategy for MCSs, leading to the inefficiency of power in MCSs. Thus, it is necessary to study new incentive mechanisms to improve MCSs’ profits. In this paper, we propose a contract-based scheme to maximize MCSs’ profits in the heterogeneous networks. Considering the power trading between EV users and MCSs, we develop the utility function with EV users’ types. Aiming to maximize MCSs’ profits, we formulate this problem as an optimization problem under the complete and incomplete information of EV users, respectively. Through the theoretical analysis, we prove the existence of optimal contract items, which also ensure the feasibility of EV users. Then optimal solutions can be achieved based on our proposed algorithm. Numerical and simulation results validate the effectiveness of our proposal.