Solar Tricycle with Lateral Misalignment Maximum Power Point Tracking Wireless Power Transfer

The solar powered tricycle is a type of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) that charges by a photovoltaic system or by a plugging in to the electricity grid. This article reports on research into the lateral misalignment maximum power point tracking (MPPT) wireless power transfer (WPT) in recharging the vehicle's battery. The solar tricycle was constructed using a 100 Wp photovoltaic (PV) panel, a battery charger with MPPT, a 5 Ah deep cycle battery, a four quadrant dc motor driver, and a 100 W dc motor. The WPT system can track for the MPPT for a lateral misalignment between 0 - 14 cm of the WPT coils using the frequency and resonator capacitor, f - c tuned. In this experiment, the solar tricycle was tested in a 1.948 km road circuit with a 635 W/m²irradiance, using a battery and no battery. The WPT system with MPPT was used to charge the battery of the solar tricycle. The WPT system was tested for MPPT using the f - c tuning to adjust for the lateral misalignment of the resonator coils. The results found that the speeds for the solar tricycle were 14.1 km/h using the battery and 12.7 km/h for no battery respectively. Tuning the f - c according to the 0 - 14 cm lateral misalignment mutual inductance, the WPT system maintain the maximum power output of 6.6 W. Finally, the WPT system that was used in the solar tricycle was tracked for the maximum output power of 6 W for distances of 0, 7, and 14 cm lateral misalignment of the two coils in the laboratory and in the field tests.