EL PASO, Texas (Feb. 4, 2025) – Running out of gas in a remote area far from a gas station is every driver's worst nightmare. A similar stressor, known as "range anxiety," exists for owners of electric vehicles who worry about how far their EV's can drive without running out of battery.
As EVs become more common on roadways — annual EV sales are estimated to reach 7.2 million by 2030 — innovative new methods are being developed to more easily charge them. One of these methods, a new mechanism that could charge vehicles while they are in motion, is the focus of a new University of Texas at El Paso-led study published in the journal IEEE Access.
The UTEP research group is part of a National Science Foundation and Department of Energy-funded coalition of engineers focused on an EV in-motion charging technology known as a Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) roadway. A DWPT roadway would embed transmitter pads within road surfaces, thereby allowing EVs to charge while driving without needing to be hooked up to a power outlet, said Paras Mandal, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering at UTEP and the study's principal investigator.
"The field of electrified transportation is evolving, and modeling the load demand on our electrical grid is a very significant part of the work," said Mandal. "Our research will allow for a comprehensive understanding of new EV charging methods to ensure sustainable use of our transportation infrastructure coupled with power utilities."
Currently, most EVs are charged at public charging stations or through electrical outlets in households. However, Mandal explained that residential charging technology is often slow and drains electricity, while public charging stations are currently not widely available. These limitations may lead to "range anxiety" and may inhibit the widespread adoption of EVs, Mandal said, which could reduce petroleum fuel consumption, emissions from vehicle transportation, and noise pollution and contribute to improved air quality.
The DWPT technology is still in development, but Mandal said that before it can be adopted, engineers, utilities and local governments need to have a thorough understanding of the future load demand on the electrical grid. Modeling "load demand" is challenging because engineers need to account for vehicles of varying sizes, different lengths of roadways, and varying degrees of traffic. In order to understand the impact of a DWPT roadway on the electrical grid at varying degrees of usage, Mandal's team developed a novel method of measuring load demand called modified Toeplitz convolution or mCONV. The model is essentially the mathematical formulation of DWPT that allows the engineers to understand dynamic electric load demand while taking into account different distances, traffic flow and vehicle types.
"The next steps in this research will be to understand how DWPT will affect power system stability and reliability," Mandal said.
"Dr. Mandal's team is doing innovative work at the frontier of our transportation system," said Kenith Meissner, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering. "This new model will help local and state authorities as well as utilities understand what's involved in implementing DWPT roadways and literally paving the way for more widespread adoption of electric vehicles."
UTEP's research is part of the ASPIRE group, an NSF Engineering Research Center that stands for Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification. The group is made up of several universities, including Utah State University, Purdue University, The University of Colorado Boulder and The University of Auckland New Zealand.
About The University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at El Paso is America's leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 25,000 students are Hispanic, and more than half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 171 bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.
