A wireless electric vehicle charging system comprises base-side equipment for generating a magnetic field and vehicle-side equipment for receiving energy via the magnetic field to supply power to a vehicle-driving battery. Monitoring circuitry monitors one or more of voltage, current, or phase associated with the base-side equipment and halts generation of the magnetic field in response to a change in the voltage, current, or phase associated with the operation of the base-side equipment that indicates a fault condition at the vehicle-side equipment, which may include a loss of power or disconnection of a battery. Based on detection of the change, the monitoring circuitry can halt generation of the magnetic field to prevent damage at the vehicle-side equipment.

In an aspect of the disclosure, an apparatus for wirelessly transmitting power is provided. The apparatus includes a communication circuit configured to communicate with a first wireless power transmitter and a second wireless power transmitter. The apparatus further includes a controller circuit configured to identify a first phase of a first current provided to the first wireless power transmitter, the first current generating a first magnetic field. The controller circuit further determines a time to provide a second current to the second wireless power transmitter. The controller circuit further provides the second current at the determined time with a second phase having a phase difference between the first phase configured to reduce a magnitude of a combined magnetic field of the first and second magnetic fields in a region between the first and second wireless power transmitters.

A vehicle is paired to a selected wireless charging station of a plurality of wireless charging stations by joining the vehicle to a first wireless network provided by a central access point, assigning a channel to use for pairing the vehicle to the selected wireless charging station by a network manager, transmitting a channel identifier to the vehicle over the first wireless network, and transmitting the channel identifier to the plurality of wireless charging stations. The vehicle then configures a beacon device coupled to the vehicle to use the assigned channel and moves into proximity of the selected wireless charging station. The selected wireless charging station detects a beacon signal of the beacon device, confirms that the beacon signal is using the identified channel, and transmits information identifying a second wireless network to the vehicle. The vehicle can then join the second wireless network using the transmitted information.

A vehicular inductive power transfer system includes a power transmission unit and a power receiving unit. The distance between the units and the overall alignment of the units with respect to each other determines the overall efficiency of the energy transfer between the power transmission unit and the power receiving unit. Magnetic fields produced by the inductive power transfer system may exceed allowable standards or regulations for human exposure to electromagnetic fields. An inductive power transfer control circuit autonomously causes an actuator to position at least one of the power transmission unit or the power receiving unit in a three-dimensional space based on one or more measured power transfer parameters. Such positioning may occur while the vehicle is moving or stationary. The control circuit may further autonomously adjust one or more power transfer parameters to maintain magnetic field exposure levels at or below industry standards or governmental regulations.

Systems, methods, and other embodiments described herein relate to charging a battery of an electric vehicle while the electric vehicle is hovering. In one embodiment, a method includes, responsive to determining that an electric vehicle does not include a receiver pad, inserting the receiver pad into the electric vehicle that is hovering in the air at a charging station. The method includes determining a space above a transmitter pad for the electric vehicle to hover based, at least in part, on a location and a size of the transmitter pad. The method includes charging a battery to a threshold value through the receiver pad.

Apparatus for inductively transmitting power, which apparatus comprises a primary unit with a primary coil and a secondary unit with a secondary coil, and in which the primary coil induces a magnetic transmission field in a transmission area between the primary unit and the secondary unit, and which has an even number of detector coil elements which are wound in opposite directions in pairs and form a detector pair.

A power supply device supplies power from a power transmission coil to a power reception coil of a vehicle in a non-contact manner. The power supply device has a communication unit that receives a startup signal for activating the power supply device. A notification unit notifies a state of the power supply device. A controller controls the notification unit based on a detection result of a detection unit. The detection unit detects a non-contact power supply possible state, in which power can be supplied from the power transmission coil in a non-contact manner. The controller sets a notification state of the notification unit to a first notification state, when the non-contact power supply possible state is detected, and sets the notification state of the notification unit to a state that is different from the first notification state, when the non-contact power supply possible state is not detected.

Systems and methods are described for extended foreign object detection (FOD) signal processing. In aspects, an oscillator reset is implemented in a FOD system to mitigate the effects of intermodulation products. In addition, dynamic frequency allocation is implemented to avoid high noise desensitizing the FOD system. Also, a slow sampling mode is implemented to increase a tolerance to transient foreign objects. Reference tracking and auto-recovery is implemented to bridge power outages. Additionally, the FOD system is configured to support position finding for determining an alignment between the vehicle pad and the base pad using a passive beacon transponder circuit and to perform beacon response cancellation as needed in concurrent FOD operation.

A detection circuit detects at least one of a value of a current flowing through a power transmitting coil, and a value of a current or voltage generated by an auxiliary coil. A control circuit determines a transmitting frequency based on the value detected by the detection circuit, the transmitting frequency at least locally minimizing load dependence. The control circuit determines a voltage for the transmitting power at which an output voltage of a power receiver apparatus is equal to a predetermined target voltage when generating the transmitting power having the transmitting frequency determined, and controls the power supply circuit to generate the transmitting power having the transmitting frequency and voltage determined.

In certain aspects, an enclosure for a wireless power transfer pad is disclosed. The enclosure includes a cover shell configured to be positioned over a portion of the wireless power transfer pad configured to face a wireless power receiver when wirelessly transferring power, wherein at least a portion of the cover shell is made of a heat resistant material.