Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Electric vehicles (EVs) are being considered as a viable solution for ecological and economic concerns such as global warming, glasshouse gas emissions, and fossil fuel resources reduction. In such vehicles, wireless charging has become an emerging challenge to reduce the cost of a conventional plug-in charging system. Currently, the widely used method to charge EVs is plug-in charging of EVs but it has serious disadvantages such as cost and proper maintenance.1,2 Wireless charging is an alternative method that can be utilized to convey energy to a Metro Bus while travelers disembark and embark. 3 One way to wirelessly charge EVs is inductive charging or inductive power transfer (IPT) that uses variable magnetic fields to cover the air gap between the primary coil and EV chassis to transmit high power. 1
The block diagram for a basic wireless charging IPT system for an EV at high frequency (100 kHz) is shown in Figure 1. The input alternating current (AC) voltage is step down to 80 V AC using a step-down transformer. This step-down AC voltage is then converted to direct current (DC) voltage using a rectifier circuit. Then a chopper circuit is utilized to generate a square wave of 100 kHz. This square wave is then fed to the compensation capacitor bank to minimize the losses and finally, the 100-kHz square wave after compensation capacitors are fed to transmitting coil. The transmitted power is then received by the receiving coil and the received power is then fed to DC load after passing through secondary compensation capacitors and rectifier. The DC load can be a battery or a supercapacitor bank.

Block diagram of a high-frequency wireless charging system of electric vehicle.
Inductive charging system faces different issues like achieving resonant frequency, bifurcation of system, misalignment of coils, shape of coils, and air gap; therefore, proper design of charging stations is required to overcome these issues.4,5 There are two ways to charge EV through IPT which can be classified as dynamic and static charging systems.6–8 In this article, we have worked on the static charging system. We have used supercapacitors instead of batteries because these could be more rational than batteries due to quick and incessant wireless charging and discharging without chemical reactions; large number of recharge cycles life; quick and high effective charge/discharge, precise voltage-based state-of-charge (SOC) measurement; a wide working temperature scope of −40°C to +70°C and little spillage current and ecologically benevolent without utilizing substantial metal for its structure material.9–11
Wireless power transmission (WPT) is a rapidly adopted technique in the transportation sector and various technical approaches are being used for its implementation in which different variations of certain parameters, for example, a number of coils, the shape of coils, compensation topologies, inverter design, and frequency controls are being implemented to get maximum power and efficiency.12–15 A detailed review of recent trends in WPT techniques is presented in Sun et al., 16 in which the authors discussed different applications of WPT for EVs. The authors highlighted the difference between static and dynamic charging of EV and explained the different combinations of coils in different forms. In another review, Chirag Panchal analyzed different shapes of coils and discussed the use of ferrite in different applications. He also suggested using aluminum plating due to their shielding property and structural integrity. The author discussed the negative point of the WPT system, that is, health and safety issues in detail. 8 The advantages of WPT in Internet of Things (IoT) technology are described by He et al., 17 by removing conventional power sources like batteries. Economic analysis of dynamic charging of EV with the real-world data obtained from the running project of online electric vehicle (OLEV) in South Korea by Seungmin Jeong. The author claimed that although initial investment on dynamic charging is more, it will save much more cost accomplished from the extended battery life. 18
Improved compensation topologies and power inverters were proposed by Giuseppe Buja, in building a WPT system which is operated at the frequency of 85 kHz and capable of providing 560 W at an air gap of 0.1–0.2 cm between coils of 0.38 m diameter with the efficiency of 77%. The author focused on improved compensation topologies and power inverters. 12 A prototype that is capable of providing 2.2 kW with coils of 40 cm diameter made with Litz wire by Nan Liu. A variable-frequency control method is proposed that is a feedback circuit which is capable of auto-tune the switching frequency to resonant frequency by changing the distance between coils to improve the efficiency of the system. A universal control method is also proposed in which different circuitries were used for the detection of frequencies, variable-frequency control, and selection of different frequencies for different types of load (light, mid, or heavy). It was proposed that an additional inductor can be added in the primary setup of the inductor–capacitor (LC) circuit to keep frequency constant and minimize the influence of air gap and misalignment between coils on certain frequency.5,19
The equivalent model circuit of series resonant WPT system is shown in Figure 2 where

Proposed topology for WPT system. 20
For a given WPT system, the optimal loading capacitance and impendence can be written as
where
From equations (1)–(4), we can choose optimal parameters for maximum power transfer system. But for a pre-arranged WPT system, the above parameters
The WPT system depicted in Figure 2 can be analyzed using Kirchhoff’s voltage law (KVL) as
where
Also,
The impedances
The two-loop equations (6) and (7) can be written in the form of impedances
Now, the final equations for input power drawn by TX coil and output power supplied by RX coil to load can be written as
where
Finally, the overall efficiency of the series compensated inductively coupled system can be derived as
From equation (17), we see that the efficiency of WPT system depends upon the load resistance
In this article, our contribution is the design of efficient wireless charging system for supercapacitor-based EVs with greater distance and smaller coil size. The proposed method is very much significant in terms of applications in practical metro-based stations where the bus stops for a short duration for embarking/disembarking of passengers. The supercapacitors will get charged instantaneously during this time by this WPT system and these supercapacitors can then provide energy for the bus.
Further contents of this article are organized such that research methodology is described in section “Research methodology.” Simulation and experimental design results are presented in section “Results and discussion.” Finally, the conclusion is presented in section “Conclusion” with future work directions.
Research methodology
The model IPT framework includes the design of transmitting and receiving coils, a high-frequency signal generator, high-frequency inverter and rectifier circuits, supercapacitor bank as a quick and highly effective charge/discharge source, and measuring devices to measure SOC of supercapacitor bank. All these components for an EV’s powertrain and charging agenda are implemented, as shown in block diagram of Figure 3.

Proposed design for IPT.
Software ANSYS MAXWELL was used to obtain simulation parameters for TX and RX coils such as self-inductance (

WPT system prototype.
Supercapacitor-based EV is shown in Figure 5 in which RX coil is mounted on the vehicle top and EV is carrying on-board supercapacitor module, a rectifier circuit, DC–DC circuit, and RX coil.

Supercapacitor-based EV.
Results and discussion
Simulation results
Single-coil model
A flat spiral coil shown in Figure 6 was designed and simulated with parameters mentioned in Table 1. Two identical coils were designed for TX and RX coils for maximum efficiency and overcoming the issues of misalignment.

Proposed transmitting and receiving coil.
Coil parameters.
SWG: standard wire gauge.
The self-inductance (
Two-coil model
A two-coil model was simulated to represent TX and RX coils separately for measurement of different parameters between these coils, as shown in Figure 7. A suitable and practical range of distance and misalignment factors were selected, that is, distance from 2 to 24 cm and misalignment along the horizontal axis from 0 to 50 mm. For each value of distance and misalignment, the following measurements were made for TX and RX coils:
Self-inductance (
Mutual inductance (
Coupling coefficient (
Magnetic flux magnitude (

Two-coil setup.
Mutual inductance (M ) and coupling coefficient (K )
The values of

Matrix1.L (TXC1, RXC1); effect of distance and misalignment on the value of
Self-inductance (L )
The value of self-inductance (

Effect of distance and misalignment on the value of self-inductance (
The magnetic flux (B )
The magnetic flux between TX and RX coil is also affected by the varying distances and misalignments between coils, as shown in Figure 10.

Effect of magnetic flux at different distances and misalignments.
This distribution of magnetic flux between coils is shown in Figure 11. It can be noted from Figure 9 that very high value of magnetic flux (shown with red color) is very close to the coils and the flux in far-field is of moderate magnitude (shown with green color). From this explanation, we can conclude that our proposed prototype is not harmful to living and external objects present in its surroundings and far-field. 4

Effect of magnetic flux distribution at a certain distance and misalignment.
The mathematical model was implemented in MATLAB to simulate output power and efficiency of the system. The parameters shown in Table 2 are used to get maximum output power and efficiency.
WPTS parameters used in MATLAB.
WPTS: wireless power transfer system; AC: alternating current.
The output power plot for different values of coupling coefficient

Output power 3D plot of WPTS.
Efficiency plot is shown in Figure 13 that shows the plot of maximum efficiency, that is, 77%, which is also at the resonant point.

Output efficiency plot of WPTS.
The simulated results of wireless power transfer system (WPTS) prototype in the form of different outputs that is coupling coefficient, distance, input power, output power, and efficiency have been mentioned in Table 3.
WPTS Simulation Results.
WPTS: wireless power transfer system.
The graphical presentation of distance, output power, and efficiency of proposed WPTS is shown in Figure 14.

Distance versus power and efficiency.
Experimental results
The experimental results are shown in Table 4 in which value of coupling coefficient (
Output power and efficiency of WPTS at different distances.
WPTS: wireless power transfer system.
The graph of output power and efficiency against different distance is shown in Figure 15.

Measured distance versus measured output power and measured efficiency.
The results in Table 4 and Figure 15 show that it is not necessary to keep a minimum distance to get maximum output power and the maximum power is obtained at a distance of 10 cm rather than minimum distance, that is, 4 cm. This proves that in WPTS, certain distance is required to get maximum output power at which our system becomes completely resonant and both coils strongly couple with each other without loss of coupling and magnetic flux. The similar behavior can be verified in simulated output power result from Figure 14.
Figure 16 shows the graph of simulated and measured power. It is clear from the graph that the measured and simulated results have a good correlation.

Graph of measured and simulated output power against distance.
In order to charge supercapacitor bank via wireless charging, the bank is attached as load after rectifier circuit. While charge storage increases in the bank, its terminal voltage also increases. The plot in Figure 17 shows the charging behavior of the supercapacitor bank as a function of time. From the plot, it is clear that it takes 306 s to charge up to 15 V. The plot is almost straight line due to constant charging current.

Charging time as a function of supercapacitor bank volts.
Comparison with the existing technique
A two-coil wireless power transfer technique is discussed in Zhou et al. 21 Zhou et al. 21 have designed the whole system at a high frequency (640 kHz). Due to this high-frequency, ultrafast metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are required to design the inverter circuit which will make the inverter design more complex and expensive. Moreover, the size of the coil is also large. The radius of the two coils is 20 cm and they are winded by 19 turns using Litz cable with 500 strands. With this high frequency and bigger coil size, they were able to achieve 20 W output power with only 22%–30% efficiency. Due to bigger coils, the distance between the coils can be a maximum of 2.2 meters. However, in our proposed technique, we have designed the system for the frequency of 100 kHz which is much lower than that in the study by Zhou et al. 21 It will make the inverter circuit less expensive and commonly available MOSFETs can be used for the inverter. The other advantage of our system is the improved and smaller coil size. In our system, the radius of coils is 12.05 cm and they are winded by 39 turns using Litz cable with only 50 strands. With such light and small coils, we were able to get approximately 100 W output power with a maximum of 75% efficiency. Reducing the coil size and still getting a handsome amount of power at the receiver coil is a big improvement. Table 5 highlights the improvements made in our design.
Comparison of our technique with the technique used in Zhou et al. 21
Conclusion
In this article, the design of an efficient WPT system was presented using a resonant inductive coupling technique for supercapacitor-based EV. Mathematical analysis, simulation, and experimental implementation of the proposed charging system have been carried. Simulation of various parts of the systems was carried out in two different software, ANSYS MAXWELL and MATLAB. The experimental setup was made with supercapacitor banks, EV, wattmeters, microcontroller, and frequency generator to verify the simulation results. The results show that the proposed technique has better power transfer efficiency of more than 75% and higher power transfer density using a smaller coil size with a bigger gap of 4–24 cm. Future work may include consideration of heating effects and an increase in the length of routes of EVs.
