With the development of technology to wirelessly supply power to moving vehicles, expectations are growing that electric vehicles will be able to charge while driving in the future.

A team led by Professor Young-Jae Byun of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at UNIST (President Jong-Rae Park) announced on the 16th that they have developed a 'wireless power supply track' that supplies power to moving vehicles without interruption.

By forming a wide and strong magnetic field composed of wires, flexible vehicle movement is possible in all directions without the need for expensive ferromagnetic magnets.

When current flows through an electromagnetic wave generator, a circular magnetic field is generated. As the range of the magnetic field expands through multiple wires, power is efficiently transmitted. Electric vehicles can drive flexibly on the power supply track formed by this wide magnetic field.

We also developed an algorithm to optimize the structure of the power supply track and power receiver. We increased the electric vehicle power transmission efficiency to up to 90%. Existing technology attempted to increase efficiency by using ferromagnetic materials, but it was difficult to apply in practice due to high costs and poor durability.

To enable the application of wireless power supply technology in real life, the research team has also completed verification of human safety, including certifications from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).

Professor Byun Young-jae explained, “Transportation vehicles, including electric cars, must be able to drive flexibly not only in parallel but also in vertical directions, but existing dynamic wireless charging technology has failed to realize this.”

"If this technology is applied to electric vehicles, it can solve the problems of long charging times and short driving ranges," said first author Cho Hyun-kyung. "Reducing the battery capacity can also reduce pollution caused by the extraction of resources such as lithium, enabling the sustainable use of natural resources."

The research results were published online in the international journal Applied Energy on August 12. The research was conducted with support from the Institute of Information and Communication Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP) under the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).