A Maximum Efficiency Point Tracking Control Scheme Based on Different Cross Coupling of Dual-Receiver Inductive Power Transfer System

Abstract

One of the most promising inductive power transfer applications is the wireless power supply for locomotives which may cancel the need for pantographs. In order to meet the dynamic and high power demands of wireless power supplies for locomotives, a relatively long transmitter track and multiple receivers are usually adopted. However, during the dynamic charging, the mutual inductances between the transmitter and receivers vary and the load of the locomotives also changes randomly, which dramatically affects the system efficiency. A maximum efficiency point tracking control scheme is proposed to improve the system efficiency against the variation of the load and the mutual inductances between the transmitter and receivers while considering the cross coupling between receivers. Firstly, a detailed theoretical analysis on dual receivers is carried out. Then a control scheme with three control loops is proposed to regulate the receiver currents to be the same, to regulate the output voltage and to search for the maximum efficiency point. Finally, a 2 kW prototype is established to validate the performance of the proposed method. The overall system efficiency (DC-DC efficiency) reaches 90.6% at rated power and is improved by 5.8% with the proposed method under light load compared with the traditional constant output voltage control method.

Keywords

• inductive power transfer
• system efficiency improvement
• maximum efficiency point tracking (MEPT)
• multiple-receiver