Wireless charging of electric vehicles is attracting attention within many technologically advanced countries, and we find the idea of dynamic wireless charging particularly exciting. In a dynamic charging system, an electric vehicle would be able to receive power while in motion, in stop-and-go traffic, or while parked. Intuitively, these alternatives introduce tradeoffs where one must weigh power transfer efficiency against user convenience. The standard approach to vehicle wireless power transfer is to use inductive coupling between coils placed under the roadway and coils within the vehicle, but these systems require expensive ferrite cores and magnetic flux shielding. Instead, we are interested in using capacitive coupling of charging plates placed under the road surface and along the length of the electric vehicle due to the potential benefits of such a system including cost, size, and reduced electromagnetic radiation. Prior work on capacitive wireless power transfer has been focused on relatively low- power applications such as smart device or implantable medical device charging, and little work has been done in the area of electric vehicle capacitive charging. Our objective is to implement a one-tenth scale model of a capacitive wireless power transfer system for electric vehicles. We intend to use a remote-controlled car mounted with charging plates which are coupled with charging plates placed below the vehicle, and the goal is to transmit power from the road system to the vehicle system as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, our system will be dynamic, activating or deactivating road plates as soon as the remote-controlled car is present above the plates or subsequently leaves the charging zone, respectively. Important power transfer and power efficiency data will be recorded, and mathematical models will help us investigate whether or not our system is scalable to a larger form-factor.
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Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering