Google testing wireless charging systems for self-driving cars: report

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google is testing wireless charging systems for its electric self-driving cars. Documents filed at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggest that Google is working toward cutting its robocars’ charger cables and beaming power to them instead, IEEE Spectrum reports.

The filings reveal that Google has been testing two wireless charging systems for its prototype electric self-driving cars in California. In February 2015, Hevo Power, a New York–based start-up, received permission from the FCC to install an experimental charger at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Momentum Dynamics, located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, followed in July. The address on Momentum’s filing corresponds to the secretive X division where Google’s self-driving cars are being developed.

Hevo’s installation at the Googleplex involved a prototype charger, called Alpha, that can deliver 1.5 kilowatts of power from a circular transmitter “embedded like a manhole cover” in pavement. Momentum Dynamics claims that it has developed wireless transmitters with power ratings of up to 200 kW—although the FCC filings did not disclose the specifications of the system Google is using.

Google engineers are now testing multiple chargers from Momentum Dynamics at Google’s HQ in Mountain View, and at the Castle Commerce Center, the former U.S. Air Force base in Atwater, Calif., where Google’s prototype vehicles undergo completely driverless testing.