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Universities, Gov't Testing Magnetic Resonance Charging For EVs In Transit (computerworld.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the power-on-the-go dept.

Lucas123 writes: At least two universities are testing the use of magnetic resonance and mobile receivers to charge electric vehicles while they're on roadways. Partially funded by a multi-million dollar DOE grant, Clemson University's International Center for Automotive Research has been testing stationary wireless vehicle charging and is now preparing to test mobile wireless recharging for vehicles.In the U.K., the government is expected to perform off-road trials of dynamic wireless charging that it acquired from researchers at North Carolina State University. The idea behind dynamic wireless charging is to create a series of embedded highway stations that can incrementally recharge EV carrying mobile receivers as the vehicles drive by. The vehicles would use a Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) technology to communicate with roadway chargers. DSRC can support both stationary wireless charging and in-motion wireless charging with the same system architecture. DSRC is already being used in crash avoidance systems and is expected to be required over the next five years, so the charging technology could piggyback on the DSRC modules already installed.

8 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Lenz's law by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2

    You could make some really sweet invisible speed-bumps with this technology.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    1. Re:Lenz's law by thesupraman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      with regard to the inmotion charging..

      Not to mention the fact that you better not be carrying anything magnetizable or magnetically erasable while you drive anywhere near these things.
      The power density would have to be astronomical - have this really got past back of the envelope analysis?

      Even if you assume a vehicle is only using 15HP to maintain itself in steady state cruise, thats a little over 11kW.
      Allow for inefficiency in the motors and storage/drive, call it 15kW steady state
      Allow for losses in the transmission and reception of the energy over a decent airgap and with a moving target, you are probably looking well over 20kW.
      Now, say the charging stations are 5 minutes drive apart, and you spend 30 second over their 'charge grids' (those will be some LONG grids..)
      you will now need a power rate of around 200kW to be transfered continuously for 30 seconds to provide enough energy.

      Could all the people willing to sit in close proximity to a 200kW field, at speed, for 10% of their driving time please raise their hands?

      Even the idea of stationary contactless charging is just foolish - why not simply attach contacts and increase the safety/efficiency massively.

      I smell pork, lots and lots of nice fat goverment funded pork. Facts never get in the way of pork..

  2. What an incredibly stupid idea... by rgbatduke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... even with mod points to burn I can't resist weighing in on this one. Some ideas are just too dumb for words. Just what sort of energy efficiencies do they think that they are going to manage? Who is going to pay for this "free" (incredibly inefficient) energy? Just how much power will they have to deliver to even break even on a moving vehicle, and how much power will their "transmitter" have to radiate in order for the car's pickup to be able to receive enough power?

    Shades of Nikolai Tesla! Why not just put up megawatt Tesla coils ever fifty meters and leave them on all the time! This is an idea that was proven stupid 100 years ago.

    But hey, the government has lots of (my) money. I'll just try to think of it as scientific welfare, sort of like climate science. Too bad they aren't spending it on something that isn't quite so obviously a boondoggle, though.

    rgb

    --
    Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    1. Re:What an incredibly stupid idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      B-b-but Tesla. Battery powered cars. Elon Musk. It has to be a great idea.

    2. Re:What an incredibly stupid idea... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      EV owner here. Even if this worked with 100% reliability it would still be pointless. There are there types of charging that matter:

      1. Home charging, which is 99%of what most people do.

      2. Destination charging. Doesn't matter if it takes a few hours, you are parked doing shopping or watching a movie or whatever.

      3. Rapid charging on motorways and main roads. For long distance trips only, and in the future few people will use them regularly because 300+ mile batteries will be the norm.

      The shear cost of installing inductive charging and the basically non-issue of having to stop for 30 minutes and charge every 3-4 hours on occasional long trips make it useless.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:What an incredibly stupid idea... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's just too much power to transmit wirelessly. It's hard enough to charge your phone - the losses are quite bad even for that.

      They are talking about 50 KW and 85 percent efficiency! That's nuts.I can't imagine anything near that in real life. But 50 KW a couple inches below my sorry butt is not a tempting thought. I'm seeing RFI problems, Magnetization and other induction issues in places they don't want it. I wonder about pacemakers or insulin pumps as well. I wonder if there will even be diamagnetic effects as well. I've got titanium in my ankles. Problem is, at thos power levels and those distances, weird stuff sometimes happens.

      To get any sort of efficiency the charging AC is going to have to be pretty high in frequency as well. I'm smelling a lot of RFI.

      I loves me my EV's, but this sounds like something right up there with Broadband over Power Line, and Smartphone service right by the GPS frequencies.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    4. Re:What an incredibly stupid idea... by Doppler00 · · Score: 2

      From my experience using several charge stations over the last year, I don't believe your concerns are that much of an issue. I haven't seen any charge stations vandalized in my area yet. If it did become a problem, I'm sure security cameras and law enforcement could deal with it.

      As far as weathering, that should be a non-issue as charge stations are engineered to be outdoor rated (check out NEMA ratings).

      What kind of "accidental damage"? Cars running into the charge station? I suppose this is a valid concern, but usually a bollards are installed in front of them.

  3. Re:Getting real close... by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 2

    "a power transfer rate of 6.9 kilowatts" is absolutely meaningless. Rates involve Time. 6.9 Kilowatts per _what_ exactly?

    You might want to look up the definition of a kilowatt.