Highly Efficient Inductive Power Transfer Across Wide Operating Range

Abstract

The electric vehicle (EV) market has experienced significant expansion in recent years, underscoring the pressing need for advanced EV charging infrastructures. In addition to conductive charging, wireless EV charging has proven to be a promising charging solution as it provides safe, convenient, and automated charging for EVs. The most commonly adopted technology for wireless EV charging is inductive power transfer (IPT). Moreover, in wireless EV charging systems, achieving a wide operating range is imperative due to several contributing factors. Firstly, EV battery loads vary significantly during the constant current-constant voltage (CC-CV) charging process. Secondly, coil misalignment and capacitance drift lead to notable deviations in the parameters of resonant circuits. Thirdly, accommodating diverse EV models to enhance interoperability introduces significant variations in air gaps, receiver coil configurations, and nominal EV battery voltages. These factors collectively expand the operating range requirements for wireless EV charging systems. Nevertheless, ensuring highly-efficient and wide-range operation under these varying conditions is challenging. This thesis aims to address this challenge by implementing advanced control and modulation techniques for power converters and compensation networks in wireless EV charging systems.