Inductive power transfer for electric bicycles charging based on variable compensation capacitor

Abstract

It is of great significance to implement inductive power transfer (IPT) technology to massive Electric bicycles (EBs) charging as it is more convenient and safer than the plug-in systems. However, the cost of IPT systems is too expensive to employ when hundreds of inverters are needed for a parking lot. A novel method to realize constant current (CC) and constant voltage (CV) output for massive EBs charging applications based on the series-series (SS) IPT system with only one inverter is proposed in this paper. An additional capacitor with an ac switch is adopted at primary side to achieve alteration by changing the circuit parameter between CC mode and CV mode without complex control strategy. The proposed method has been verified with an experimental prototype and the results demonstrate that the designed output CC and CV meet the charging profile of EBs.