Improved Metal Object Detection Circuits for Wireless Charging System of Electric Vehicles

As the supply of electric vehicles increases, research on wireless charging methods for convenience has been increasing. Because the electric vehicle wireless transmission device is installed on the ground and the electric vehicle battery is installed on the floor of the vehicle, the transmission and reception antennas are approximately 15-30 cm away, and thus strong magnetic fields are exposed during wireless charging. When a metallic foreign object is placed in the magnetic field area, an eddy current is induced to the metallic foreign object, and heat is generated, creating danger of fire and burns. Therefore, this study proposes a method to detect metallic foreign objects in the magnetic field area of a wireless electric vehicle charging system. An active detection-only coil array was used, and an LC resonance circuit was constructed for the frequency of the supply power signal. When a metallic foreign object is inserted into the charging zone, the characteristics of the resonance circuit are broken, and the magnitude and phase of the voltage signal at both ends of the capacitor are changed. It was confirmed that the proposed method has about 1.5 times more change than the method of comparing the voltage magnitude at one node.