ORNL Experience and Challenges Facing Dynamic Wireless Power Charging of EV's

As visionary as dynamic, or in-motion, wireless charging of electric vehicles appears the concept is well over a century old as this paper will show. This is because the concept of magnetic induction dates back to the pioneering work of physicist Michael Faraday in the early 19th century. Today wireless power transfer (WPT) is being standardized for stationary and quasi-stationary charging of electric vehicles (EV). The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has undertaken the standardization of stationary charging and will make this public during 2016. In addition to this the IEEE-SA (Standards Activities) initiated standards development for EV's in their EVWPT working group in 2012. This paper introduces the many challenges facing EVWPT in not only high power transfer to a moving vehicle and energy management at a utility scale, but communications in a vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) environment and management of high data rates, ultra-low latency, and dealing with communications loss in dense urban areas. Future concepts such as guideway powering of EV's are presented to illustrate one technical trajectory EVWPT may take.