Maybe electric cars are the brilliant, cleaner future, but keeping them charged is still a quagmire involving a tangle of cables and long stops for charging along the way. Going cordless—with wireless (inductive) charging—is one way to manage this bothersome reality. And as one of the technology leaders for wireless charging, Qualcomm, has just shown, you could charge just as rapidly without even taking a break from driving.
Qualcomm this week demonstrated the newly developed dynamic version of its Halo wireless-charging system, which could be deployed on more test sections of road in the next several years and in useful sections of some public roadways within 10 years. At 20 kW, it can provide enough power so that an efficient compact or mid-size vehicle could maintain its charge at 75 mph—or potentially add charge at lower speeds.
Just as with Qualcomm’s static wireless system—and all inductive charging in devices like phones and electric toothbrushes—the dynamic system uses an energized primary coil’s surrounding magnetic field (within a base charging pad) to produce electrical current in a secondary coil (within the vehicle’s charging pad) across a gap, with no physical connection.
Although the basics of the technology are the same, in the translation from static to dynamic the company’s team has made some changes to the coil geometry and configuration. Dynamic charging uses an 85-kHz frequency—chosen so that it can be deployed globally without technology changes. It also employs two 10-kW pads on the vehicle to give it far more flexibility in lane positioning. Although each pad takes up a nearly 14-by-24-inch area on the underside of the car, that was no problem for the Renault Kangoo EV on which the system was demonstrated. A maximum gap of 17.7 inches allows the roadway pad to be recessed from the surface or installed beneath several inches of concrete or asphalt, while still being close enough for higher-riding SUVs.
Intended to Be Modular, Efficient, and Interoperable
There is no set of standards yet for dynamic charging, but if you view it as a static system, it keeps to current SAE J2954 wireless-charging standards and interoperability with other brands at the 7.4-kW level. Qualcomm has tested the static technology in Formula E racing and with much higher power, and officials confirmed that the same would be possible with the dynamic system—and that the current hardware would work at higher speeds. Slot-car racing, anyone?
Engineers are targeting 80 percent efficiency for the project from grid to battery, and they’re getting close. One key to the efficiency is that roadway pads are activated only when an equipped vehicle drives over a pad; the system below the vehicle switches on in as little as 3 milliseconds and switches off within 10 milliseconds of the vehicle’s passing.
Qualcomm’s system is designed to be modular and easily installed in the middle of roadways or as part of manufactured concrete blocks. It uses 25-meter-long stubs, each of which has its own power supply. Each stub includes 14 Base Array Network blocks that are magnetically coupled to the system’s backbone. An entire stretch of roadway would be connected closely to a substation that is part of the smart power grid.
Easy for Drivers, but Heavy Lifting for the Infrastructure
Paying for your wireless charge likely would also be easier for drivers than using a public charging station. The power can be metered and could be billed through existing charging networks or via a traffic-control network for future connected vehicles.
As for the project itself, the physical test roadway, including a 100-meter stretch of dynamic charging, is in Versailles, France; construction was started in January 2014 and was completed recently. It’s part of a $10 million project mostly funded by the European Commission and implemented by a consortium of 25 organizations from nine European countries—including automakers, suppliers, and energy and infrastructure firms. Many of those organizations intend to study the technology and how it could be implemented. Qualcomm isn’t interested in getting into the business as a direct automaker supplier; instead, it’s licensing the technology to as many primary suppliers as it can.
If you’re still wondering who’s going to pay for such massive road-infrastructure projects in an era when we seemingly can’t keep up with ordinary potholes and surface upkeep, hope comes in the form of one especially trendy term: autonomous vehicles. These, and the car-sharing and ride-hailing vehicles that will come in the interim, are compelling as electric vehicles for their running costs and zero tailpipe emissions. And the success of such operations depends on keeping vehicles out on the road as much as possible—something that recharging on the fly would most definitely enable.
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