A Measurement System for the Characterization of Wireless Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles

This article describes a new traceable measurement system, designed for the characterization of inductive charging stations for electric vehicles. This article particularly focuses on static charging (stationary vehicle), while dynamic charging (charging while driving) requires a significantly different system. The measurement system is able to measure on-site performance and efficiency of the charging station and converters. The relative uncertainty is ≤10−3. The measurement system aims at accurately measure the power at the batteries and the power transferred from the ground to the onboard resonant circuit and makes possible a benchmarking between station measuring systems. Finally, this measurement system allows the characterization of the magnetic emissions by correlating them with the electric current in the coils. This system improves the ease and ability to characterize wireless charging stations both in field and laboratory environments. This article describes in detail the hardware, the software, the GPS synchronization, and, in summary, the system architecture.