Dynamic inductive charging lanes: open technical questions on power electronics co-design, grid integration, and battery aging
Assuming multi-kilometer highway segments equipped with resonant IPT pads at typical automotive frequencies and per-vehicle transfer powers on the order of tens to low hundreds of kilowatts, I am looking for informed perspectives and data on a few system-level topics that seem underexplored in published pilots.
Unified vehicle power electronics architecture. Beyond the canonical add-on receiver and DC/DC, is anyone prototyping a traction-inverter-coupled topology (e.g., leveraging the existing machine inverter and DC link with a reconfigurable bridge or DAB stage) that can:
- Meet EMC limits while operating the traction motor and receiver simultaneously.
- Avoid objectionable torque ripple/harmonics from coupling between the switching spectra.
- Provide bidirectional capability to act as rolling reactive compensation for the lane (improving feeder power factor and stabilizing resonance under multi-vehicle loading).
Dynamic control under variable coupling. With lateral/vertical misalignment, vehicle pitch/roll, wet/snow layers, and coil segmentation, what control strategy has proven most robust for constant-power transfer:
- Frequency trimming versus phase-shift modulation versus hybrid impedance matching.
- Fast handover between segments (“cellular” lane handoff) without large DC-link transients.
- Coordinated multi-vehicle power scheduling to prevent resonant detuning and maintain ZVS across mixed receiver classes.
Battery aging under ultra-shallow, high-frequency micro-cycling. For passenger EV packs (NMC, NCA, LFP) and heavy-duty packs (LTO/LFP blends), is there empirical evidence on:
- SoH impact of thousands of sub-1% SOC charge pulses per hour at 0.2-1C, compared to fewer, deeper charges.
- Influence of elevated pack temperature from concurrent traction and charging.
- Whether buffering via small onboard supercap/aux battery to smooth micro-cycles materially improves life versus the added mass/complexity.
Road structure and materials interaction. Field data on:
- Eddy current and heating effects in rebar or metallic utilities; coil phasing or shielding strategies that mitigate rebar losses without excessive ferrite.
- Asphalt/rutting and thermal cycling of encapsulated coils at typical flux densities; long-term dielectric and mechanical stability in freeze-thaw climates.
- Snow/ice and standing water: airgap variability and loss/efficiency penalties; sensor strategies to modulate power or frequency under these conditions.
Grid and feeder design. Experience with:
- Medium-voltage AC versus MVDC feeders for reduced reactive circulation and simpler sectioning.
- Distributed tunable compensation along the lane to keep segment Q manageable across occupancy.
- Using vehicles as distributed VAR devices to stabilize the lane resonance and mitigate flicker on weak feeders.
EMC and spectrum management. Techniques that demonstrably pass CISPR/UNECE limits at scale:
- Spread-spectrum or pseudo-random frequency dithering to reduce spectral lines without degrading control loops.
- “Harmonic cloaking” to avoid interference with AM broadcast and amateur bands along corridors.
Foreign object and biological safety. Reliable, fast FOD under high vehicle throughput and weather contamination, and compliance with contemporary ICNIRP/IEEE exposure limits. Any measured data for implanted medical devices at curbside distances when lanes are fully loaded.
Metering, billing, and privacy. Architectures that can settle per-segment energy delivery at highway speeds with minimal latency:
- Cryptographic proofs from receiver-side meters that preserve user privacy while allowing roaming and settlement across operators.
- Fail-safe behavior (e.g., power throttling) when communications drop without misbilling.
Operations and economics. Realistic duty cycles and mix of HDVs versus LDVs needed to justify CAPEX/OPEX; maintenance intervals and failure modes of embedded power electronics; strategies for seasonal de-icing using the coil infrastructure as an ancillary function.
Requests:
- Pointers to open datasets or peer-reviewed analyses from recent dynamic WPT pilots (efficiency versus speed, thermal maps, EMC test results, battery SoH over months of operation).
- Any public design notes on traction-inverter-coupled receiver architectures and their EMC/functional safety assessment.
- Standards status for truly dynamic operation and handover, beyond static alignment (SAE/CENELEC/UNECE), and known gaps inhibiting multi-vendor interoperability.
If you are involved in a pilot or have lab data that speaks to any of the above, summaries or anonymized plots would be highly valuable.