Researchers from Chinese and British institutions have developed a wireless charging system for new energy vehicles (NEVs) with conversion efficiency exceeding 98 percent.
The system could support the large-scale use of autonomous vehicles and has potential in sectors such as rail transit, industrial robots and low-altitude aircraft.
A fully automated charging solution that requires no manual intervention is seen as key to the commercial rollout of autonomous vehicles. Inductive power transfer is widely regarded as an ideal route to such charging.
But mainstream ferrite-core solutions face challenges in efficiency, power density and thermal stability. Improving power density and thermal stability while maintaining high efficiency has been a core bottleneck for wireless charging technology.
Researchers from the Dongguan Institute of Materials Science and Technology in south China's Guangdong Province, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), worked with the City University of Hong Kong, the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Physics under the CAS to develop a 20 kW-class wireless charging system for NEVs based on nanocrystalline alloys, achieving conversion efficiency of 98.51 percent.
Their study, recently published in Nature Communications, describes a magnetic core structure resembling an overpass that can meet the long-term high-temperature requirements of wireless charging.
The magnetic core strip produced by the team measures 440 mm long, 330 mm wide and 4 mm thick. Its thickness is only half that of traditional ferrite solutions, yet it can carry higher power density.
The system's performance is expected to be further optimized and charging efficiency improved. The Dongguan Institute of Materials Science and Technology is also pushing forward its industrial application.
According to the institute, the new system can be applied not only to autonomous vehicles but also extended to rail transit, industrial automated guided vehicles and low-altitude aircraft.
In September, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and eight other government departments announced the five-year plan for the intelligent connected NEV industry from 2026 to 2030. The plan proposes that by 2030, vehicles with autonomous driving functions will achieve large-scale application in China, with highly automated driving in scenarios such as highways, urban expressways and some urban roads.
