A3.2 - Designing an economically efficient and reliable static and dynamic wireless charging infrastructure for emission-free apron ground vehicles

Motivation & Project Description

The objective of planning inductive charging infrastructures on airport aprons is to develop an infrastructure that ensures uninterrupted service operations of electrically operated apron vehicles. This infrastructure can be implemented in various ways, differentiating between stationary and dynamic charge transfer. Both stationary and dynamic inductive charging systems enable charge transfer between the road infrastructure and the vehicle to be charged independently of the user. The charging takes place via a magnetic field and thereby no cable to the vehicle is needed. In addition, the dynamic inductive charge transfer enables charging of vehicles while driving. This technology has multiple benefit: the vehicles have no charging downtime, the range of the vehicles is not limited and the battery size can be reduced compared to normal electric vehicles.

The inductive charging of vehicles requires two interacting systems. The first component is the power transfer system composed of a power supply unit and an inductive transmitter unit underneath the road surface. The power supply unit (PSU) creates the connection to the local power grid. The inductive transmitter unit (ITU) is composed of a cable and an iron core and transfers the energy to the vehicle. The second part of the system is the electric vehicle. Compared to a normal electric vehicle, this vehicle needs to be equipped with a pick-up system and a regulator.

Mathematical optimization models can be used for the planning of the (dynamic) inductive charging infrastructures on airport aprons. As part of an optimization process, the components required for such an inductive charging system are arranged on the apron at minimum cost, taking vehicle consumption into account.

Objectives

• Definition of requirements for inductive charging systems from the technical and economically perspective
• Development of basic mathematical optimization models for planning dynamic inductive charging systems
• Integration of additional aspects to the basic models like
  • different vehicle types
  • power limitations of  PSU/ITU
  • loss of power at ITU
  • battery size
• Integration of static charging systems in the models
• Development of test instances
• Development of solution methods for the models, as the computation time of standard solvers increases significantly with increasing instance size
  • column generation
  • Benders decomposition
  • heuristics
• Validation of model results with simulation