Wireless Power Transfer for Static Railway Applications

There is a wide literature and an increasing industrial interest concerning the application of inductive power transfer (IPT) to light railway systems. In this work, an innovative application, currently not considered in literature, regarding the static current collection on conventional railway lines is presented. According to standards in force, current collection in standstill conditions is strongly limited since pantograph contact strips and catenary wires should be subjected to potentially dangerous thermal overloads. This limitation must be seriously considered since the power demand for all the services installed on modern coach should be far higher than 20-40kW. This should represent a critical technical issue when a long composition must be maintained for a long period in standstill conditions. Additional possible applications should be related to recharge and feeding of cooled refrigerated wagons in freight compositions. In all these cases it should be useful the availability of a simple, safe and compact system to ensure a wireless power collection to onboard equipment which is the object of this work. The possibility of single small inductive power transfer unit that should be installed in railway stations to solve this kind of troubles is presented, focusing the attention on possible specifications and preliminary sizing of the system.