Design of wireless power transfer systems with thermal and electromagnetic analyses

Abstract

As more attention has recently been brought to wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies, many at-tempts to improve the wireless concept have been performed in various institutions and companies [1] [2]. Also, since thermal loss in electronic devices causes unexpected problems in WPT systems, there are many research papers and projects on electronic equipment such as transformers, and inductors [3] -[5]. However, no active thermal research on current WPT systems on the market has been done yet. Effect of heat dissipation of a WPT system device can be minute if the machine deals with low power. But as power and frequencies increase in the system, dramatic decrease in power transfer efficiency can occur due to serious power loss combined with mis-match between resonance frequencies in the WPT system.In this thesis, intuitive design methodology, which includes design constraints, algorithm, and guidelines, is proposed for WPT systems. The suggested design constraints and algorithm will enable engineers to design more stable and efficient WPT systems with less time and energy, since the feedback process fully analyze the in-process WPT model thermally as well as electromagnetically. In addition, the suggested guidelines will lead WPT system designers to an optimal WPT design model, since verification processes of the guidelines were per-formed with various simulations before they are introduced in the thesis.In the Applications section, several design models are introduced and modified with the proposed meth-odology. Among them, the newly-design WPT module for light-weight vehicles has 38 % less weight, and 28 % less power loss by heat compared to the initial model while remaining the required power transfer rate. Speaking of WPT pickup modules for buses, the modified OLEV system surpasses the performance of the current OLEV model in both power transfer rate and heat power losses. With the modified version, the total saved energy goes up to 1 kW at hot atmospheri...