Prototype design and evaluation of an FSAE-based pure electric vehicle with wireless charging technology

Abstract

With growing concern of environment and limited petroleum, eco-friendly vehicle systems such as hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicle are introduced to the market globally. While the technological limitations on pure electric vehicles, such as lesser than customer expected driving range due to the limited power and energy capacity of the onboard energy storage device, and the developing phase of charging infrastructure, are still exist, the automotive industry and its stakeholders are paying significant attention to the electric vehicle technology. On the other hand, in the car racing, there are strong movement to introduce electric vehicles in racing automotive industry. Electrifying Formula One is a good example in this regard. Various emerging college-level competitions on hybrid, plug-in hybrid, solar and electric vehicle racings are also important activities in view of massive and prompt penetration to the market and technological development in efficiency, durability and system integration. In this paper, we would like to present a FSAE (Formula SAE)-based pure electric vehicle with the wireless charging technology, called OLEV. This charging technology can be applied not only to the static wireless charging but also the on-road dynamic charging, which means vehicle’s on-board battery can be charged while the vehicle is running on the road with installed power supply system. This paper introduces and emphasizes the unique architecture of FASE-based vehicle specification, but modified to have pure electric drive and battery system, in addition to the dynamic wireless charging system on-board. This vehicle is the only kind in the world on FSAE-platform of on-road dynamic charging electric vehicle. We discuss the design, packaging and simulated performance of the vehicle, in addition to the proper 110V DC power supply and flow management approach, which are unique contributions of this paper.