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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPEL.2017.2735365, IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics
1

A Two-Plate Capacitive Wireless Power Transfer


System for Electric Vehicle Charging Applications
Fei Lu, Student Member, IEEE, Hua Zhang, Student Member, IEEE, and Chris Mi, Fellow, IEEE

 In this proposed CPT system, the voltage on the vehicle


Abstract—This letter proposes a two-plate capacitive wireless chassis should be reduced for safe operation. According to
power transfer (CPT) system for electric vehicle charging IEEE C95.1 standard [8], the RMS current flowing through
applications. The vehicle chassis and the earth ground are used to human body is required to be smaller than 16.7 mA from
transfer power, which can replace two plates in a conventional
100kHz to 110MHz. Considering that the human resistance is
four-plate CPT system. Therefore, only two external plates are
required in the proposed CPT system. The coupling capacitance about 500Ω at high frequency [9], the allowed maximum RMS
between the plates allows the current to flow forward to the voltage on vehicle chassis is about 8.35 V in the worst case.
vehicle side, and the stray capacitance between the chassis and the This letter proposes three methods to reduce chassis voltage:
earth ground provides the current-returning path. After increasing switching frequency, designing the coupler structure,
analyzing the working principle of a CPT system, it shows that the and optimizing the compensation circuit.
voltage on the vehicle chassis can be reduced through switching
In the electric vehicle charging application, it proves that,
frequency, the coupler structure design, and the compensation
circuit design. Then, a downsized prototype is implemented to when the system switches at 6.78MHz and the compensation
validate the proposed system, in which two inductors are used to circuit is well designed, the chassis voltage can be limited to
compensate the capacitive coupler. Experimental results show 8.35V with 3.0kW system power. A downsized prototype is
that the prototype achieves 350W power transfer with 70% dc-dc implemented to validate the proposed system. Experimental
efficiency over an air-gap distance of 110 mm, and the RMS results show that the RMS value of chassis voltage is limited to
voltage on vehicle chassis is limited to 132V.
132V in a 1.0 MHz and 350W system. In the future work, the
Index Terms—capacitive power transfer, two plates, vehicle voltage will be further reduced to a safe level.
chassis, earth ground, low voltage stress
II. SYSTEM WORKING PRINCIPLE
A. System Structure
I. INTRODUCTION
The structure of a two-plate CPT system for electric vehicle
C apacitive power transfer (CPT) is a promising technology
to achieve wireless power transfer (WPT) [1]. It utilizes
high-frequency electric fields to transfer power, which can also
charging applications is shown in Fig. 1.
On the primary side, an inverter is used to provide an AC
excitation, followed by a compensation circuit. The earth
be called electrical resonance [2]. In recent years, different
ground P1 and a metal plate P2 work as the transmitter, and there
circuit topologies [3]-[6] have been proposed to realize both
is an insulation layer between them.
short- and long-distance CPT systems and promote the
The parasitic capacitance between the vehicle chassis and the
practical applications.
earth ground is used as the current returning path. In practical
Conventionally, a CPT system utilizes four metal plates,
applications, the earth ground can also be connected with a
horizontally [4] or vertically [7] arranged, forming two
metal plate to further reduce the conductive loss. It needs to be
capacitive couplers to transfer power. Two plates are installed
emphasized that this ground-side plate is optional. If it is used,
on the primary side as a transmitter, and the other two are at the
it should have a good connection with the earth ground. For
secondary side as a receiver. There are coupling capacitances
example, it can be buried into the ground to maintain a good
between plates, allowing the displacement currents to flow
connection. Then, as long as the connection with the ground is
through.
good enough, the size of the ground-side plate can be much
To simplify the capacitive coupler structure in vehicle
smaller than the vehicle chassis. Since the ground-side plate
charging applications, this letter proposes a two-plate
directly connects with the compensation circuit, all the parasitic
capacitive power transfer system. The vehicle chassis and the
displacement currents from the chassis to the earth ground will
earth ground work as two plates in the conventional four-plate
be aggregated to this ground-side plates and then flow back into
CPT system. Therefore, only two external plates are required.
the compensation circuit.
The stray capacitance between the chassis and the ground is
used as the current-flowing path, resulting in a compact system
structure.

This work was supported in part by US Department of Energy Graduate


Automotive Technology Education Grant and San Diego State University.
Fei Lu, Hua Zhang, and Chris Mi are with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182
USA. (email: feilu@umich.edu, hzhang@mail.sdsu.edu, cmi@sdsu.edu).

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPEL.2017.2735365, IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics
2

Fig. 1. Structure of a two-plate compact CPT system for electric vehicle charging applications

S M  PM  jQM  VC1  ( jC M VC 2 ) *


(3)
B. Equivalent Circuit Model  C M VC1  VC 2  sin   jC M VC1  VC 2  cos 
In Fig. 1, the earth ground P1, the vehicle chassis P3, and the Therefore, the active power PM and reactive power QM are
plates P2 and P4 work together as a capacitive coupler, which is expressed as
represented by a six-capacitance and a behavior-source model  PM  C M VC1  VC 2  sin 

(4)
[7], as shown in Fig. 2. The self-capacitances are defined as C1 
QM  C M VC1  VC 2  cos 

and C2, and the mutual capacitance is defined as CM, as shown
It shows that the system power is proportional to switching
below. The coupling coefficient is defined as k C  C M / C1C 2 .
frequency ω, mutual capacitance CM, voltage stresses |VC1| and
 (C13  C14 )  (C 23  C 24 ) |VC2|, and also relates to the phase angle θ.
C1  C12 
 C13  C14  C 23  C 24
D. Voltage Stress

 (C13  C 23 )  (C14  C 24 ) (1)
C 2  C 34  The six-capacitance model in Fig. 2(a) is used to calculate
 C13  C14  C 23  C 24
 C13 C 24  C14 C 23 the chassis voltage V13, which is expressed as,
C M 
 C13  C14  C 23  C 24
C  C24   VC1  C14  C24   VC 2
V13  23 (5)

C13  C14  C 23  C 24
C. System Power Calculation Substituting (2) to (5), the magnitude of | V13| is expressed as
The behavior-source model in Fig. 2(b) is used to calculate A 2  B 2  2 A  B  cos  (6)
V13 
system power. The load is represented by an equivalent C13  C14  C 23  C 24
resistance RL. The voltage between P2 and the ground is defined where,
as VC1, and the voltage between P4 and the chassis is defined as 
 A  (C 23  C 24 )  VC1

(7)
VC2. The voltage VC1 is chosen as the reference phasor, and the  B  (C14  C 24 )  VC 2

phase difference with VC2 is defined as θ, resulting in Considering the power equation (4), if |VC1| and |VC2| satisfy,
VC 2  VC 2  cos   j sin   (2)
C14  C 24 PM C 23  C 24 PM (8)
According to Fig. 2(b), the apparent power absorbed by IM1 is VC1  , VC 2 
C 23  C 24 C M sin  C14  C 24 C M sin 
defined as SM and expressed as
|V13| can reach its minimal value, which is expressed as,
2C 23  C 24   C14  C 24  PM 1  cos  (9)
V13   
min
C13  C14  C 23  C 24 C M sin 
In a capacitive coupler, the capacitances C14 and C23 are
usually much smaller than C13 and C24 [7]. If the phase angle θ
is much smaller than π/2, (8) and (9) can be simplified as
PM C 24 PM (10)
VC1  VC 2  , V13    sin 
C M sin  min
C13  C 24 C M
(a) Six-capacitance model In the vehicle charging application, the chassis P 3 is much
larger than the plate P4, resulting in C24<<C13. According to (1),
CM is approximately equal to C24. Then, the voltage stresses are
further simplified as,
 PM
 VC1  VC 2 
  C 24 sin  (11)

(b) Behavior-source moel  C 24 PM
 V13 min    sin 
Fig. 2. Equivalent model of a two-plate CPT system with ground and chassis  C 13 

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPEL.2017.2735365, IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics
3

According to (11), for a given system power PM, there are 180°phase difference, which means V2=-V1. Since a resistive
three methods to reduce the chassis voltage |V13|: increasing the load RL is used at the output side, the output voltage V2 is in
switching frequency ω; designing the capacitive coupler phase with the output current I2. Then, VC1 and VC2 can be
structure to increase C13 and decrease C24; and designing a rewritten as
compensation circuit to reduce sinθ. It needs to be noted that  C1 jL1
decreasing sinθ can increase the voltages |VC1| and |VC2|. VC1  V1  C  V1  R  VC1  1
 M L (15)

E. Compensation Circuit Design V  V  V  jL1  V 


C2 1 1
RL
C2 2

An example of the compensation circuit topology is shown in where, θ1 and θ2 are the phase of VC1 and VC2, and their phase
Fig. 3. A full-bridge inverter is used on the primary side to difference is θ. If the parameters are designed to satisfy
provide an AC excitation. A full-bridge rectifier and a low-pass ωL1>>RL·C1/CM, θ and sinθ can be approximated to be
filter (Lf-Cf) are used on the secondary to provide a DC current C1 R L R R 1
sin       L  L  (16)
to the output resistor Ro. Two compensation inductors L1 and L2 C M L1 L1 C M  2 L12
are adopted on the primary and secondary sides, respectively, to It can be concluded that, for a constant voltage working
resonate with the capacitive coupler. Using the fundamental mode LC-compensated CPT system, sinθ can be reduced
harmonics approximation (FHA) method and the coupler through decreasing the load resistance RL, increasing the
model in Fig. 2(b), it can be simplified as Fig. 4. coupling capacitance CM, and increasing the compensation
This circuit topology is similar to the double-sided LC inductance L1.
compenation in [6], except that the external capacitances are
eliminated and only an external inductor is required at each side. III. DESIGN EXAMPLE
The equivalent resistance is expressed as RL=Ro×8/π2. The
voltages VC1 and VC2 are expressed as, A. 3.0kW Full Power Example
VC1  V1  I 1  jL1 (12) In a practical application as shown in Fig. 1, the chassis size

VC 2  V2  I 2  jL2 of a passenger car is about 4.6m×1.8m [10], which can be used
According to [6], the compensation inductors L1 and L2 can to transfer 3.0 kW power. In this design, the size of plates P2
be designed to achieve a constant voltage working mode, and P4 is chosen to be 0.45m×0.45m, and their air-gap distance
resulting in is set to be 110 mm. The finite element analysis (FEA) by
 1 1 Maxwell shows that C13=706pF and C24=15.5pF. Then, |V13|
 L1  1  k   2 C can be calculated using (11), as shown in Fig. 5.
 C 1 (13)

L  1  1 It shows that increasing the switching frequency ω and


2
1  kC  2C2 decreasing sinθ both help to decrease voltage |V13|. For example,
In Fig. 4, if the parameters are designed to be symmetric if the system switches at 6.78 MHz, the chassis voltage can be
(L1=L2, C1=C2, kC=CM/C1), the input current I1 is calculated as limited to be lower than 8.35 V, as long as the compensation
V1  C  C M RL  circuit is designed to maintain sinθ lower than 0.03.
I1   1  j  1   (14)
RL  CM L1  B. 350W Downsized Prototype Design
According to Ref. [6], at the constant voltage mode, the input
Considering the space limitation in our lab, a 0.91m×0.91m
voltage V1 and output voltage V2 have the same magnitude and
metal plate is used to act as the vehicle chassis. The size of
plates P2 and P4 is also 0.45m×0.45m, and the airgap is 110mm.
To achieve similar power density as the previous 3.0 kW
system, the power of this system is downscaled to be 350 W.
On the primary side, a metal plate P1 is also used and connected
to the earth ground to reduce the conductive loss. The
capacitances are measured as C12=134pF, C13=82pF, C24=15pF,
and C34=124pF. Two inductors (L1=188μH, L2=205μH) are
used on the primary and secondary sides [6]. Silicon carbide

Fig.3. Circuit topology of a two-plate CPT system

Fig.4. Simplified circuit topology of a two-plate CPT system Fig. 5. Calculated voltage on chassis in a 3.0 kW two-plate compact CPT system

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPEL.2017.2735365, IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics
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devices are used in the inverter and rectifier to provide 1MHz efficiency from the dc source to the dc load including the power
switching frequency, and a 20Ω resister is connected with the electronics circuit reaches 70.1%. The experimental waveforms
rectifier as the load. Then, the prototype is shown in Fig. 6. are shown in Fig. 8, in which Fig. 8(a) indicates that a unity
In this experimental prototype, the bottom plate acts as the power factor is realized on both the input and output sides.
ground-side plate, and it is directly connected to the earth The chassis voltage was measured with its RMS value with
ground in the power socket on the wall with a wire. Therefore, respect to the ground at 132 V. Because of the parasitic
the bottom plate has the same potential as the earth ground and capacitance of the voltage probe, the voltage VC1 and VC2
becomes part of the earth ground. The capacitance between the cannot be measured directly with the probe. Therefore, they
top and bottom plate acts as the parasitic capacitance between should be measured by indirect method. According to (12),
the vehicle chassis and the earth ground, and the current Using the measured waveforms of V1, I1, V2, and I2 from the
flowing from the bottom plate back to the compensation circuit oscilloscope, the waveforms of VC1 and VC2 can then be
can be treated as the returning current from the earth ground. acquired and plot in MATLAB, as shown in Fig. 8(b). It shows
The voltages on the plates and chassis can cause electric field that the experimental RMS values of VC1 and VC2 are 7.5kV and
emissions to the surrounding environment. In this 350W CPT 6.5kV, respectively, which agree with the simulation results.
system, circuit simulation by LTspice shows that the voltage on The enlarged figure shows the details which indicate that their
plates P2 and P4 can be 7kV, and the voltage on the chassis is time difference is about 0.22μs, which is about 8° difference at
about 130V. Using these voltages as excitations, the electric 1MHz, resulting in a sinθ of 0.14.
field emissions are simulated using Maxwell as shown in Fig.7.
B. Misaligned Case
The Maxwell simulation shows that most of the electric
fields concentrate between the chassis and the earth ground, When there are misalignments, the coupling capacitances
and the electric field emissions are limited. According to IEEE decrease and the resonances in the circuit are affected, resulting
C95.1 standard [8], the human exposure of electric fields at in the reduction of system power and efficiency. The system
1MHz should be lower than 614V/m. The simulation result
shows that the safe range of this two-plate system is 40mm
away from the edge of the coupler.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS


A. Well-Aligned Case
In the well-aligned case, as the input dc voltage reaches
100V, the system achieves 356 W output power. The dc-dc

(a) Input and output

Fig. 6. Prototype of a downsized two-plate CPT system with a ground-side plate


(b) Plate voltage VC1 and VC2
Fig. 8. Experimental waveforms of a downsized two-plate CPT system with a
ground-side plate
power and efficiency are measured in misalignment cases as
shown in Fig. 9.
It shows that when the misalignment is 80mm, the output
power drops to 46% of the well-aligned value. When the
misalignment is 150mm, it drops to 12% of the well-aligned
Fig. 7. Electric field emissions of a downsized two-plate CPT system value. It also shows that the system efficiency decreases with
the misalignment. With a misalignment of 80mm, the dc-dc
efficiency is 73.4%, and it reduces to 65.3% at 150mm case.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPEL.2017.2735365, IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics
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an external capacitor Cex1 (74pF) connecting in parallel with P2


and the earth ground to establish the circuit resonance.
The measured waveforms are similar to those in Fig. 8(a).
Since the ground-side resistance is increased, the power loss is
increased. When the input dc voltage reaches 100V, the system
reaches 116.8W output power with 40.3% dc-dc efficiency.
It should be pointed out that this is the worst case, because
the ground-side plate is completely eliminated and the
conductivity of the earth ground is not optimized. But it can
Fig. 9. Experimental output power and dc-dc efficiency in misalignment cases provide the guideline to improve the system performance in
In misalignment cases, since the resonances in the circuit are future application.
affected, it is very important to measure the chassis voltage and
avoid the chassis voltage increase. The good news is that the V. CONCLUSION
experimental results indicate a decrease of chassis voltage with This letter proposes a two-plate compact CPT system for
misalignment, which is acceptable. In our future research, the electric vehicle charging applications. The vehicle chassis and
misalignment performance will be improved to maintain the the earth ground are exploited to transfer power, which can
system power and efficiency without increasing the chassis simplify the structure of the CPT system. The voltage on the
voltage. vehicle chassis is studied, which provides three methods to
C. Discussion: Impact of Ground-side Plate on the Efficiency reduce the chassis voltage for safe operation. A 3.0 kW
two-plate CPT system is designed for an electric vehicle. When
The efficiency of double-side LC-compensated CPT system the switching frequency is 6.78MHz and the compensation
is expressed as circuit is well designed, the chassis voltage can be limited to
2
I RL  RL (17) 8.35V, which is safe for humans. Also, a downsized 350 W
 LC  2
I RL  RL  I L22  RL 2  I C2 2  RC 2  I C21  RC1  I L21  RL1 downsized prototype is implemented with a 132V chassis
where IC1, IL1, IC2, IL2, and IRL are the currents flowing through voltage. In the future prototype design, the switching frequency
the circuit components, and RC1, RC2, RL1, and RL2 are their will be increased and the compensation circuit will be improved
parasitic resistances. RC1 represents the ground-side resistance to further reduce the chassis voltage.
from the capacitive coupler to the compensation circuit.
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