Wireless Charging of Electric Vehicles: A Review and Experiments

In this paper, the technologies for electric vehicle wireless charging are reviewed including the inductive coupling, magnetic resonance coupling and microwave. Among them, the magnetic resonance coupling is promising for vehicle charging mainly due to its high efficiency and relatively long transfer range. The design and configuration of the magnetic resonance coupling based wireless charging system are introduced. A basic experimental setup and a prototype electric vehicle wireless charging system are developed for experimental and research purposes. Especially the prototype system well demonstrates the idea of fast and frequent wireless charging of supercapacitor electric vehicles using magnetic resonance coupling. Though the idea of wireless energy transfer looks sophisticated, it is proved to be a handy technology from the work described in the paper. However, both component and system-level optimization are still very challenging. Intensive investigations and research are expected in this aspect.