Coil, Circuit and Control Designs for Future Wireless Power Transfer Systems in Electric Vehicle Applications

Dear Colleagues,

There is a global consensus to promote using Electric Vehicles (EVs) to replace traditional combustion vehicles in order to help combat climate change. The dawn of the EV era and subsequent self-driving systems have also prompted the urgent development of advanced self-commissioning wireless charging technologies. For mobile devices, such as automated guided vehicles, drones, lawnmowers, and vacuum cleaners, being charged with wireless power can save CO₂ emissions and electronic waste due to higher energy utilization and less cable usage. Existing wireless charging standards, such as “Qi” and “Rezence”, are set for 5 W to 200 W low-power applications with one-dimensional planar coils. These standards need to evolve with new wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies for emerging medium-power and high-power applications with a larger spatial freedom because 1% improvements of energy transfer efficiency, charging time, and lifecycles may be negligible for low-power applications but lead to carbon reduction in high-power applications.

This Topic hopes to bridge this knowledge gap by compiling a series of new control technologies of coil, circuit, and control designs for emerging EV applications, which have great potential to be included in next-generation wireless charging standards. Taking advantage of these technological developments, the outcomes of this project will facilitate the large-scale adoption of wireless-powered EVs, which will help reduce CO₂ emissions and electronic waste.

Dr. Yun Yang
Prof. Dr. Ka Wai Eric Cheng
Topic Editors