Integrated Wireless Charging Receiver for Electric Vehicles With Dual Inverter Drives

Wireless/contactless charging of electric vehicles can improve the safety and convenience of the electric vehicle charging process. However, in order to enable wireless charging on an electric vehicle, additional components need to be added to the vehicle, which increase the cost, and weight of the vehicle. Specifically, a wireless receiver coil and power electronics are required to receive the wireless power and charge the battery. This work proposes a new integrated wireless charger, which reuses the existing drivetrain components, such as the traction inverters and the motor, to serve as the receiver-side power electronics for wireless charging. Importantly, this topology limits the high frequency currents entering the traction components, such as the motor, which are susceptible to high frequency losses. The drivetrain can serve to control the charging rate of the batteries, which eliminates the need for transmitter side battery charging control and communication. Experimental validation was done by coupling a 110 kW EV machine and dual-inverter drivetrain to a 6.6 kW wireless transmission system. A peak charging efficiency of 94.3% over a vertical coil distance of 200 mm was achieved.