Development of a new type of electric off-road vehicle powered by microwaves transmitted through air

Abstract

Needless to say, we are now facing a critical state in the global environment, i.e. global warming. We have to change our way of thinking and our economic systems from those dependent on fossil resources to those dependent on renewable energy resources, such as solar energy. In our field of research, electric vehicles are considered the best choice for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. A battery is not an adequate energy source for electric vehicles, because batteries quickly get depleted because of its low energy and power density. A fuel cell is a more favorable alternative to the battery; however, it has large mass and can only replace the internal combustion engine, but the power transmission mechanisms are still necessary. The new concept of an electric off-road vehicle proposed here is entirely different from those mentioned above. The vehicle has neither a combustion engine nor a battery but only electric motors. Energy to drive the motors is transmitted through air as microwaves at 2.45 GHz. This technology was developed at the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto University, as a method for transmitting electricity from a large-scale solar power station (SPS) orbiting in space to the Earth. We have constructed some models of electric off-road vehicles and investigated their adoptability to microwave power transmission. In this paper, some experimental results on the use of microwave power transmission for powering the vehicles are presented, and some problems such as low energy transmission efficiency are also discussed.