Electrical energy wireless transfert: Application to electric roads

The present paper focuses on wireless energy transfer mechanisms applied to urban electric vehicles. It describes the using conditions of a particular transformer without ferromagnetic core, supplied by a resonant inverter and loaded by mobile sources (catenaries with magnetic induction to power electric vehicles). The system consists of unconventional transformers with large air-gaps and a generator who supplies the transformer. The paper describes the theoretical model used for the numerical simulation (magnetic circuit, power converter, loads), and the measurements provided by our experimental platform (Tesla lab.). The transformer is supplied by a half-bridge series resonant converter. The transformer secondary coil is mobile compared to the primary, which is fixed on the road. This system is found in many industrial applications such as light automatic vehicles, tramways, etc. In this work we will show that the performance of a transformer without magnetic circuit can be equivalent to a standard transformer.