An Adaptive Current Limiting Controller for a Wireless Power Transmission System Energized by a PV Generator

The use of a wireless power transmission system (WPTS) in modern applications, such as consumer electronics, renewable energy sources (RESs) and electric vehicles (EVs), can significantly increase the safety and convenience of the power supply. However, low efficiency is a major hurdle to the use of a WPTS in these applications. In this article, an adaptive virtual impedance controller (AVIC) is presented to enhance the wireless power transfer (WPT) efficiency of a photovoltaic generator (PVG) to the load. In the proposed controller, a unique method is employed to adaptively estimate the coefficient of coupling and resonant frequency of the WPTS coils as a function of the distance between the coils. Moreover, a modified incremental conductance (IC) based maximum power tracking (MIC-MPPT) technique is presented to operate the PVG at MPPT mode. The proposed MIC-MPPT is tested via a hardware prototype and the controller validation is carried out in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment under various uncertainties, such as intermittent irradiance, variable load, and the distance between transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) coils. Finally, a comparative analysis between the proposed controller and the conventional non-adaptive and adaptive resonant frequency controller is presented which confirms the superiority of the proposed controller.