Driving Test Evaluation of Sensorless Vehicle Detection Method for In-motion Wireless Power Transfer

In-motion wireless power transfer (WPT) has the capability to drastically increase a cruising distance of electric vehicles (EVs). A vehicle detection technique is important for a road facility to reduce standby power consumption and to prevent an unnecessary magnetic field leakage. A sensorless vehicle detection method using voltage pulses has been proposed and fundamental experiments have been demonstrated with small-scale equipment. In this paper, a full-scale in-motion WPT system is implemented and a test vehicle is developed with the second generation wireless in-wheel motor (W-IWM2). The sensorless vehicle detection method is applied to the implemented in-motion WPT system and the feasibility of the proposed system is verified by the driving experiment with the test vehicle.