Model Predictive Control for Contactless Energy Transfer Systems

In this paper, a novel current and power control method for contactless energy transfer (CET) systems is presented. A variety of CET powered applications, such as charging systems, mandatorily require a changeable transfer power. Usually, the power flow of a fixed frequency CET system is adjusted with the aid of conventional pulse width modulation (PWM). This type of modulation leads to unavoidable hard switching cycles in the inverter and thus results in elevated dynamic MOSFET losses along with a decreased efficiency. In contrast, the here presented predictive control method avoids hard switching and hence allows an increased efficiency. Besides, the model based strategy enables very high control speeds.