The design evaluation of inductive power-transformer for personal rapid transit by measuring impedance

The contact-less inductive power transformer (IPT) uses the principle of electromagnetic induction. The concept of the IPT for vehicles such as the personal rapid transit (PRT) system is proposed and some suggestions for power collector design of IPT to improve power transfer performance are presented in this paper. The aim of this paper is to recommend the concept of IPT for vehicles such as the PRT system and also to present some propositions for the power collector design of the IPT, which is to improve the power transfer performance. Generally, there are diverse methods to evaluate transfer performance of the traditional transformers. Although the principle of IPT is similar to that of the general transformer, it is impossible to apply the methods directly because of large air gap. The system must be compensated by resonant circuit due to the large air gap. Consequently, it is difficult to apply numerical formulas to the magnetic design of IPT systems. This paper investigates the magnetic design of a PRT system using three-dimensional magnetic modeling and measurements of the pick-up coupling coefficient and its impedances. In addition, how the use of Litz wire and leakage inductance is related will be observed through experiment and simulation.