Comparison of magnetic couplers for IPT-based EV charging using multi-objective optimization

Inductive power transfer (IPT) is becoming increasingly popular in stationary electric vehicle (EV) charging systems. In this paper, the influence of the different IPT coupler geometries on the performance factors such as efficiency, power density, misalignment tolerance, and stray field is studied. Four different coupler topologies, namely the circular, rectangular, double-D (DD-DD), and the double-D transmitter with double-D-quadrature receiver (DD-DDQ) are considered in this study. The electromagnetic behavior of the couplers is modeled using three-dimensional finite-element method, which is validated by experiments on a laboratory prototype. A multi-objective optimization (MOO) framework is developed to analyze the Pareto tradeoffs between conflicting performance metrics for the couplers. Optimization results depict that the circular topology performs best among the selected topologies regarding higher coupling coefficient, and efficiency for similar active mass and coupler area. Circular and rectangular couplers perform better than the polarized couplers like DD-DD and DD-DDQ regarding stray field exposure in both vertical and lateral direction of the coupler position in the EV. However, polarized couplers show more tolerance toward misalignment compared to circular and rectangular couplers. Thus, this study provides information regarding the specific strengths and weaknesses of different coupler topologies, which can be used during the initial design phase.