Qualcomm Sees Licensing Model in Wireless EV Charging Technology

more apparent as Qualcomm and HaloIPT move forward this year with their plan to deploy wireless recharging stations and compatible EVs in London.

There are at least four key areas to explore in terms of setting standards, according to Anthony Thomson, a Qualcomm vice president (and the founding CEO of HaloIPT) who accompanied Gilbert to San Diego:

—Frequency. Thomson says charging systems typically operate at frequencies that range from 10 kilohertz to 150 kilohertz. It’s obviously impractical for different EV models to require different frequencies to recharge.

—Receiver location. Inductive power transfer transmits energy from an electromagnet in a mat or pad on the ground (or mounted on a wall) to a receiver in the EV. The location of the receiver on the car needs to be standardized, though, so the power transmitter and receiver can be aligned. Qualcomm maintains that its HaloIPT technology provides significantly greater lateral leeway in this alignment.

Anthony Thomson

—Communication systems. The charging system communicates extensively with both the EV and the power grid, which necessitates standards for the myriad systems that communicate from the charger to the car controller, battery management system, user interface, and other modules.

—The size and shape of the charging pad itself.

Gilbert said the innovations that differentiate Qualcomm’s HaloIPT system from other wireless charging technologies lie primarily with its lateral tolerance in aligning the charging system with the car—and with the high efficiency of its power transfer technology. A Rolls Royce EV prototype system operates with an end-to-end energy transfer efficiency of better than 90 percent, Gilbert said. Thomson added that the design of the electromagnet in HaloIPT’s charging system also is unique, and the company holds many other patents as well.

As Gilbert and Thomson explained all this, however, it also became apparent that their technology is competing not only with other wireless recharging technologies, but with conventional plug-in EV charging systems that also are being

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.