As plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) become more popular and common place, there has been a considerable demand for hassle-free charging, in the... Show moreAs plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) become more popular and common place, there has been a considerable demand for hassle-free charging, in the form of wireless technologies. The goal of this research was to investigate the design challenges associated with the design of a high-efficiency, wireless, Level-2 PHEV charger. This work analyzes the challenges presented by the magnetic coupling factor, AC resistance and Q-factor, coil radius, and power electronics, as well as their impact on the overall efficiency and output power level. In this work, the design specifications were centered on the Chevy Volt, and the wireless technology used for power transfer was the WiTricity™ system. In order to regulate the load current/voltage, a “current chopper” circuit is presented, which acts as similarly to a modified boost converter. To validate the ideas presented in this thesis, a 3.3 kW charging system was designed and simulated. To accurately model the WiTricity™ system in simulation, an electromagnetic/circuit-level co-simulation was performed using MATLAB Simulink and Infolytica MagNet. Waveforms from simulation are presented and analyzed in this work. The current chopper circuit was found to accomplish both voltage regulation for resistive loads, as well as constant-current and constant-voltage mode charging for Li-ion battery applications. Because of the switching nature of the current chopper, direct efficiency calculations were not possible; however, at full load, the wall-to-load efficiency was calculated to be 80%. M.S. in Electrical Engineering, July 2012 Show less
