The proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs), owing to their advantages over internal combustion engine vehicles, has introduced many challenges, due to the lack of charging infrastructure that can handle such a large surge of EVs. Therefore, alternative feasible charging solutions, such as EV-to-Grid (V2G) and EV-to-EV (V2V) charging have gained prominence thanks to the bidirectional charger. However, there are several challenges hindering the adoption of V2V energy sharing solutions. The existing frameworks that detail the main aspects in energy management protocols emphasize solely on the EV integration with the grid, with the assumption of the grid availability and capability of supporting V2V energy sharing. In this article, a novel holistic energy management framework for an efficient V2V energy sharing is proposed. The proposed framework offers a complete overview of the different stages in the V2V charging problem and introduces possible solutions for each stage and its integration with other stages to form a comprehensive V2V solution, that is not only cost-effective but also maximizes user satisfaction and social welfare, while simultaneously fulfills the highest number of energy demands.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are being widely adopted to completely replace vehicles with internal combustion engines. However, the development of charging infrastructure to support the growing number of EVs has been lacking primarily due to the high cost of installation. Additionally, the immature and non-uniform deployment of charging stations has led to the absence of charging infrastructure in areas such as highways and rural areas. As a result, emerging concepts such as, EV-to-Home (V2H), EV-to-Grid (V2G) and EV-to-EV (V2V) charging have gained prominence. In this paper, the V2V energy sharing concept is exploited, where an intelligent and comprehensive framework to manage and allocate energy between EVs is proposed. This work presents a realistic modeling of the V2V energy sharing problem and proposes a two-layer matching approach that can efficiently match the EVs. The proposed approach not only optimizes the cost, but also the time, system energy efficiency, user satisfaction, and social welfare; hence making the approach more realistic and inclusive. Gale-Shapley is utilized to produce stable matchings, in the first layer, whereas a user-satisfaction model is devised to ensure realistic matchings, in the second layer. Additionally, a real-life dataset is developed from commercially available EVs and the performance of the system is evaluated using this dataset, in addition to realistic parameters derived from real-life data. The proposed approach is compared with a benchmark, where the results show that efficient, realistic, and effective V2V matches are achievable, paving the way for the adoption of such framework.

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a promising candidate for power applications, due to its superior electrical properties such as high critical breakdown field and saturation drift velocity. The recent emergence of GaN substrates with low defect densities has made it feasible to develop efficient vertical GaN power diodes. However, the breakdown voltage of these diodes is far from the theoretical value, due to the lack of suitable edge termination techniques in GaN such as junction termination extension (JTE). This is attributed to the processing challenges in fabricating GaN power diodes where it is difficult to form p-type regions through implantation. This work addresses this challenge and proposes the design, optimization, and a comprehensive design methodology for implantation-free, edge termination techniques such as field plate (FP), single and multi-etch JTE, and a hybrid FP-JTE structure, suitable for vertical GaN diodes. The proposed approaches demonstrate that close to theoretical breakdown voltages (>80%) are achievable, with greater area efficiency, simple processing, and high tolerance in process variation.