Il Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), the Purdue University and the German startup Magment GmbH announce plans for absolute innovation. This is the first segment of a highway paved in “conductive” concrete in the world. The project will use innovative magnetizable concrete, allowing the highway to wirelessly charge electric vehicles during the driving.
Wireless Charging Highway: Three Steps to Implementation
The first two stages will include testing, analysis and optimization research of the pavement conducted by Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP) at the West Lafayette campus in Purdue. In the third phaseinstead, INDOT will build a test bed. A segment of highway about 200 meters (a quarter of a mile) long in a location yet to be determined. There, engineers will test the innovative concrete's ability to load the operation of, for example, high-powered heavy trucks (200 kilowatts and more).
When testing of all three phases are successfully completed, INDOT will use the new technology to electrify a yet to be determined segment of the interstate highway within the US state of Indiana.
A window for great changes
"The transport sector is in the midst of a transformation. A transformation that hasn't occurred since the invention of the automobile," he says Nadia Gkritza, professor of civil engineering and agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University. “Through this research, we foresee opportunities to reduce emissions and exposure to pollutants near a highway. Not only that: we will also be able to activate other transport innovations in shared mobility and automation. Things that will shape data-based policies, which will encourage further progress ”.
It starts by September 2021
This project is a real step towards the future of dynamic wireless charging. Such a highway will undoubtedly set the standard for cost-effective, sustainable and efficient electrification of transport.
Mauricio Esguerra, CEO of Magment, in a recent statement
The project is expected to start by the end of the summer. It is still unclear what kind of techniques the engineers intend to use on the test-highway stretch to generate enough power for the electric vehicles. Not much information about the project has been provided at the moment.
