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This paper deals with the mitigation of magnetic field emission in dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT) systems. DWPTs are used to charge electric vehicles (EVs) in motion along electrified roads. A critical aspect of these systems is the magnetic field that must be compliant with regulation limits. In this work, a formulation for fine tuning of the LCC compensation is adopted to control magnetic field emission while maintaining high electrical performances and without varying the input impedance of the system. The numerical results demonstrate the proposed approach’s effectiveness in mitigating magnetic field emissions to comply with electromagnetic field (EMF) safety limits, while also improving power transfer efficiency.

This paper deals with the mitigation of magnetic field levels produced by a wireless power transfer (WPT) system to recharge the battery of an electric vehicle (EV). In this work, an array of active coils surrounding the WPT coils is proposed as a mitigation technique. The theory and new methodological aspects are the focus of the paper. Magnetic field levels in the environment are calculated numerically without and with the presence of an array of active coils in a stationary WPT system for automotive applications. By the proposed mitigation method, the field levels beside the vehicle are significantly reduced and comply with the reference levels (RLs) of the ICNIRP 2010 guidelines for human exposure to electromagnetic fields and the magnetic flux density limits proposed by ISO 14117 for electromagnetic interference (EMI) in cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs).

Electric vehicles (EV) are now considered the present and future of road transportation to reduce the emission of CO2 into the environment and thus progressively reduce global warming and climate change. However, EVs currently have some weaknesses such as the available range of battery-powered EVs and the recharging time of the batteries. To overcome these problems, some electrification projects have been proposed for road transportation such as the dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT), where an EV charges as it moves along an electrified lane using magneto-resonant coupling between short tracks mounted on the road pavement and the vehicle’s onboard pickup coils. While the results are encouraging from an electrical point of view, there is concern regarding the magnetic field in the environment produced by the DWPT coils, which can produce adverse health effects in humans and electromagnetic interference (EMI) in electronic devices. The latter also includes implantable medical devices (IMDs) and in particular cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs), which may be present among vehicle passengers and pedestrians in areas surrounding the vehicle. The aim of this study is the numerical analysis of the EMI produced by a DWPT system in CIEDs with leads such as pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), etc. EMI is mainly produced by the incident magnetic field and the induced voltage at the input port of a CIED; therefore, in this work the magnetic field levels produced by a DWPT system operating at 85 kHz are calculated first, then the voltage at the input port of a pacemaker is evaluated as that produced by the magnetic field incident on the loop surface formed by a lead implanted in the venous system. According to ISO 14117 standard, it is assumed that the lead loop is planar, semicircular in shape and with an area equal to 225 cm2. Since the lead can be placed anywhere where a human can be and with any orientation, an innovative and sophisticated roto-translation algorithm is proposed to find the maximum value of the peak-to-peak induced loop voltage in the most critical regions inside the vehicle cabin and beside the vehicle near the DWPT coils. The preliminary results obtained show that there is no EMI risk inside the vehicle for the passengers with CIEDs, while some concern for pedestrians is due to the induced voltage at the input port of a CIED with unipolar leads which can exceed the ISO 14117 limit in the region next to the vehicle.

The aim of this study is to predict the electromagnetic interference (EMI) effect produced by a dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT) system on a buried multiconductor signal cable. The short-track DWPT system architecture is here considered with an operating frequency of 85 kHz and maximum power transferred to an EV equal to 10 kW. The EMI source is the DWPT transmitting coil which is activated when a vehicle passes over it. The electric and magnetic fields in the earth produced by the DWPT coil currents are calculated numerically using the finite elements method (FEM). These fields are then used to derive the voltage and current sources that appear in the field-excited multiconductor transmission line (MTL) model, used for the buried shielded cable. The MTL is analyzed considering the first ten harmonics of the current. The currents and voltages at the terminal ends are calculated considering the wireless charging of a single electric vehicle (EV) first, and then the simultaneous charging of 10 EVs which absorb a total power of 100 kW. The preliminary results reveal possible EMI problems in underground cables.

A wireless charging pad for drones based on resonant magnetic technology to recharge the internal battery is presented. The goal of the study was to design a robust, reliable and efficient charging station where a drone can land to automatically recharge its battery. The components of the wireless power transfer (WPT) system on board the drone must be compact and light in order not to alter the payload of the drone. In this study, the non-planar receiving coil of the WPT system is integrated into the drone’s landing gear while the transmitting pad is designed to be efficient for any landing point and orientation of the drone in the charging pad area. To meet these requirements, power transmission is accomplished by an array of planar coils integrated into the ground base station. The configuration of the WPT coil system, including a three-dimensional receiving coil and a multicoil transmitter, is deeply analyzed to evaluate the performance of the WPT, considering potential lateral misalignment and rotation of the receiving coil due to imprecise drone landing. According to the proposed configuration, the battery of a light drone (2 kg in weight and 0.5 kg in payload) is recharged in less than an hour, with an efficiency always greater than 75%.

Dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT) of electric vehicles (EVs) is the future of urban mobility. The DWPT is often based on a series of short track pads embedded in road pavement that wirelessly transfers electrical energy to EVs equipped with a pickup coil for battery charging. An open problem with this technology is the variation of the coupling factor as a vehicle switches from one transmitting coil to another during its motion. This can cause a significant change in power with possible power spikes and holes. In order to overcome these issues, a new architecture is here proposed based on two pick-up coils mounted in the vehicle underneath. These identical receiver coils are placed in different positions under the vehicle (one in front and the other in the rear) and are activated one at a time so that inductive coupling is always good enough. This innovative configuration has two main advantages: (i) it maintains a nearly constant coupling factor, as well as efficiency and transferred power, as the vehicle moves along the electrified road; (ii) it significantly reduces the cost of road infrastructure. An application is presented to verify the proposed two-coil architecture in comparison with the traditional one-coil. The results of the investigation show the significant improvement achieved in terms of maximum power variation which is nearly stable with the proposed two-coil architecture (only 2.8% variation) while there are many power holes with the traditional single coil architecture. In addition, the number of the required transmitting coils is significantly reduced due to a larger separation between adjacent coils.

This study deals with the optimization of a shielding structure composed by multiple active coils for mitigating the magnetic field in an automotive wireless power transfer (WPT) system at 85 kHz. Each active coil is independently powered and the most suitable excitation is obtained by an optimization procedure based on the Gradient Descent algorithm. The proposed procedure is described and applied to shield the magnetic field beside an electric vehicle (EV) equipped with SAE standard coils, during wireless charging. The obtained results show that the magnetic field in the most critical area is significantly reduced (i.e., approximately halved) with a very limited influence on the electrical performances (i.e., WPT efficiency decreases by less than 1 percentage point compared to the case without active shielding).

An active coil system is proposed to shield the magnetic field produced by a dynamic wireless power transfer (WPT) system used to power electric vehicles (EVs) in motion. The considered dynamic WPT is based on an electrified road with many short-track pads. A sophisticated mathematical procedure is developed to optimize the design of the active coils configuration and their excitation. By the proposed approach, the resulting magnetic field is compliant with the reference levels (RLs) of the ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) 2010 Guidelines inside the cabin of EVs and on the side of the electrified road.

A near-field wireless power transfer (WPT) technology is applied to recharge the battery of a small size drone. The WPT technology is an extremely attractive solution to build an autonomous base station where the drone can land to wirelessly charge the battery without any human intervention. The innovative WPT design is based on the use of a mechanical part of the drone, i.e., landing gear, as a portion of the electrical circuit, i.e., onboard secondary coil. To this aim, the landing gear is made with an adequately shaped aluminum pipe that, after suitable modifications, performs both structural and electrical functions. The proposed innovative solution has a very small impact on the drone aerodynamics and the additional weight onboard the drone is very limited. Once the design of the secondary coil has been defined, the configuration of the WPT primary coil mounted in a ground base station is optimized to get a good electrical performance, i.e., high values of transferred power and efficiency. The WPT design guidelines of primary and secondary coils are given. Finally, a demonstrator of the WPT system for a lightweight drone is designed, built, and tested.

This study deals with the inductive-based wireless power transfer (WPT) technology applied to power a deep implant with no fixed position. The usage of a large primary coil is here proposed in order to obtain a nearly uniform magnetic field inside the human body at intermediate frequencies (IFs). A simple configuration of the primary coil, derived by the Helmholtz theory, is proposed. Then, a detailed analysis is carried out to assess the compliance with electromagnetic field (EMF) safety standards. General guidelines on the design of primary and secondary coils are provided for powering or charging a deep implant of cylindrical shape with or without metal housing. Finally, three different WPT coil demonstrators have been fabricated and tested. The obtained results have demonstrated the validity of the proposed technology.

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Recommended Practice (RP) J2954 (November 2017) was recently published to standardize the wireless power transfer (WPT) technology to recharge the battery of an electric vehicle (EV). The SAE J2954 RP establishes criteria for interoperability, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), electromagnetic field (EMF) safety, etc. The aim of this study was to predict the magnetic field behavior inside and outside an EV during wireless charging using the design criteria of SAE RP J2954. Analyzing the worst case configurations of WPT coils and EV bodyshell by a sophisticated software tool based on the finite element method (FEM) that takes into account the field reflection and refraction of the metal EV bodyshell, it is possible to numerically assess the magnetic field levels in the environment. The investigation was performed considering the worst case configuration—a small city car with a Class 2 WPT system of 7.7 kVA with WPT coils with maximum admissible ground clearance and offset. The results showed that the reference level (RL) of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines in terms of magnetic flux density was exceeded under and beside the EV. To mitigate the magnetic field, the currents flowing through the WPT coils were varied using the inductor-capacitor-capacitor (LCC) compensation instead of the traditional series-series (SS) compensation. The corresponding calculated field was compliant with the 2010 ICNIRP RL and presented a limited exceedance of the 1998 ICNIRP RL. Finally, the influence of the body width on the magnetic field behavior adopting maximum offset was investigated, demonstrating that the magnetic field emission in the environment increased as the ground clearance increased and as the body width decreased.

In this study, the electric field induced inside two realistic anatomical models placed near or inside an electric vehicle made of carbon-fiber composite while charging its battery with a wireless power transfer (WPT) system has been investigated. The WPT source consists of two parallel inductive coils operating with a power output of 7.7 kW at two different frequencies of 85 and 150 kHz. Since a misalignment between the primary and the secondary coil creates higher induced fields, a misalignment of 20 cm is also considered as the worst-case exposure condition. The analysis of the obtained results shows that the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) basic restrictions are exceeded by 1.3 dB and 4.8 dB for the aligned and misaligned coil positions, respectively. This exceedance is however confined only in a small area of the driver’s foot.

This study deals with the design and the optimization of a wireless power transfer (WPT) charging system based on magnetic resonant coupling applied to an electric vertical take-off and landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). In this study, a procedure for primary and secondary coil design is proposed. The primary circuit in the ground station consists of an array of coils in order to mitigate the negative effects on the coupling factor produced by the possible misalignment between the coils due to an imperfect landing. Key aspects for the design of the secondary coil onboard the UAV are the lightness and compactness of the WPT system components. A demonstrative prototype of the WPT system is applied to a commercial drone. The WPT electrical performances are calculated and measured. Finally, an automatic battery recharge station is built where the drone can autonomously land, recharge the battery and take off to continue its flight mission.

The configuration of an infinite planar conductive shield is examined when it is excited by an electromagnetic near field generated by a coil current source as that of a wireless power transfer (WPT) system. The analytical expressions of the electromagnetic field based on the transmission theory of shielding are given for different frequencies and different incidence angles of the near field generated by the coil current, assuming the conductive planar shield placed in the close proximity of the coil. The obtained results are discussed and compared with other traditional analytical and numerical solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining the induced electric fields in the human body is a fundamental problem in bioelectromagnetics that is important for both evaluation of safety of electromagnetic fields and medical applications. However, existing techniques for numerical modelling of induced electric fields require detailed information about the sources of the magnetic field, which may be unknown or difficult to model in realistic scenarios. Here, we show how induced electric fields can accurately be determined in the case where the magnetic fields are known only approximately, e.g. based on field measurements. The robustness of our approach is shown in numerical simulations for both idealized and realistic scenarios featuring a personalized MRI-based head model. The approach allows for modelling of the induced electric fields in biological bodies directly based on real-world magnetic field measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we focus on the validity of the skin layer currently implemented in up-to-date human-body anatomical models employed in low frequency (LF) numerical dosimetry. Indeed, the several layers of the skin structure, i.e. the stratum corneum (SC), dermis, and epidermis are in these models embedded into a unique fairly-thick (2–3 mm) layer encompassing all of them. While a previous work from the authors showed that for normal-standing (or limb-non-touching) postures a single-layer skin model could conservatively estimate the peak electric field induced in the skin, at least a two-layer skin model comprising of the SC and the remaining skin layers should be used for limb-touching exposure scenarios. This implies notable efforts to discretize the tiny SC layer questioning the validity of current anatomical models. A novel strategy based on the homogenization of the several skin layers has been therefore proposed in order to eliminate the SC from the computational domain opening the doors to future LF magnetic applications even for limb-touching scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]