Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

A portable renewable solar energy-powered cooling system based

on wireless power transfer for a vehicle cabin
Hongye Pan a, Lingfei Qi a, Xingtian Zhang a, Zutao Zhang a,⇑, Waleed Salman a, Yanping Yuan a,
Chunbai Wang b
a
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, PR China
b
Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

A novel portable solar collector

mechanism is optimally designed.

Wireless power transfer is first
applied to cooling systems.

A supercapacitor stores electricity
and outputs a regulated supply.

The proposed cooling system shows
high efficiency in a limited space.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: As the greenhouse effect becomes increasingly serious, cooling a vehicle cabin parked under the blazing
Received 3 January 2017 sun without running the engine or using an electric vehicle’s power has received considerable attention.
Received in revised form 12 March 2017 In this paper, we develop a novel portable, renewable, solar energy-powered cooling system with wire-
Accepted 14 March 2017
less power transfer (WPT) and supercapacitors to cool the vehicle cabin. The proposed system consists of
Available online 21 March 2017
a solar collector mechanism, an energy conduit, and a temperature control and cooling module. First,
consisting of folding solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, the solar collector mechanism making the proposed
Keywords:
system portable. Once collected, the solar energy is converted into electricity and stored in the superca-
Photovoltaic
Wireless power transfer
pacitors through wireless power transfer without breaching the vehicle body. Automatic temperature
Supercapacitor regulation is achieved with the cooling device via the temperature control and cooling module. The
Portable cooling system experimental results indicate that a maximum output power of 2.181 W and a maximum WPT efficiency
of 60.3% are achieved when the prototype loaded with 3 X and 5 X respectively. Meanwhile, the simu-
lation shows the temperature inside the cabin is reduced by as much as 4.2 °C in average, demonstrating
that the proposed solar energy-powered cooling system is effective and feasible in cooling a hot vehicle
cabin.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zzt@swjtu.edu.cn (Z. Zhang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.03.069
0306-2619/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343
1. Introduction
Vehicles play an important role in transportation within mod-
ern society. The consumption of fossil fuels has also brought smog,
hazardous emissions, and global warming, which has aroused
increasing interest in new energy sources. Much research has been
focused on electric vehicles (EVs) to achieve emissions reductions
[1]. As another solution, many researchers have been fascinated
by harvesting energy (especially vibration energy) from the envi-
ronment [2–4]. Existing energy harvesting systems can be placed
into different categories, including mechanical, piezoelectric, ther-
moelectric, wind energy, and solar [2–8].
It is vitally important to drivers that there be an air conditioner
in their vehicles in the summer. One pervasive problem in the
summer is that the temperature of the car cabin will rise rapidly,
especially in vehicles parked outdoors. High temperatures speed
the ageing of plastics, release harmful gas, consume more fuel to
power the air conditioner, and compound energy problems.
Solar energy, a renewable and clean energy, has been widely
used to provide heat and electricity [9]. The use of renewable solar
energy to power an air conditioner while reducing greenhouse gas
production and energy consumption has attracted global attention
[11–24]. Numerous researchers have proposed solar energy pow-
ered air-conditioning systems, which consist of two types: (1) pho-
tovoltaic (PV) conversion, and (2) photothermal conversion [10].
Photovoltaic collectors have increasingly been used to supply
solar air-conditioning cooling systems, as the cost of a solar PV sys-
tem is currently economical. Anis [11] proposed a PV-powered air-
conditioning system based on microprocessor control. Compared
to a conventional PV powered air conditioning system, this system
makes the high starting current of the motor more feasible. Daut
et al. [12] presented a solar-powered air-conditioning system using
PV panels consisting of a PV module, charge controller, batteries
and an air conditioner. Porumb et al. [13] compared the perfor-
mances of a solar-powered absorption air-conditioning cooling
system and a solar-powered photovoltaic air-conditioning cooling
system. They found that the photovoltaic cooling fraction was
12.1% greater than the thermal cooling fraction. Huang et al. [14]
designed and built an air conditioner for a low-energy house dri-
ven by solar PV panels. The system is supported by a small buffer
battery; no grid power is needed. A residential district-level cool-
ing system combining photovoltaic and natural gas power is devel-
oped in [15]. At various times of a day, the PV generation and the
gas turbine may work together or singly to provide electricity to
meet the heating/cooling demand. Sanaye and Sarrafi [16] pre-
sented a combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) solar gener-
ation system to supply cooling, heating, electricity and hot water
for a building. Li et al. [17] presented a solar photovoltaic air con-
ditioner that can meet temperature control needs in any weather
with an inverter efficiency of 70–80%. The system has been
deployed in a room, where the photovoltaic array is installed on
the roof above the room. The solar air-conditioning system devel-
oped by [18] combines photovoltaic and thermal collectors and is
able to produce both electricity and hot water.
Many researchers have used solar energy as the power supply
for an air-conditioning system via photothermal conversion. In
[19], the authors analyse the technology and economy of the pro-
posed solar-powered cooling systems for industrial applications to
evaluate their advantages and limitations. Rosiek et al. [20] applied
occupancy sensors and chilled water storage tanks in a solar-
assisted air-conditioning system. The system reduces the con-
sumption of electrical energy by approximately 42% and the pro-
duction of CO2 by 1.3 tons during an entire summer of operation
under a partial load. To select the optimal solar collectors for a
solar-driven ejector air-conditioning system, Zhang et al. [21]
developed a simulation program. Based on the results of computer
335
simulation and lab tests, the selected collectors can meet the full
demands of powering a 5 kW solar-driven ejector air-
conditioning system for 10 h. A solar-assisted air-conditioning sys-
tem combining a liquid desiccant ventilation system with an air-
handling unit is proposed by Qi et al. [22]. The proposed system
has been simulated in five cities representing four main climate
regions, with savings of up to 45% in energy consumption. Zhai
et al. [23] designed a solar-powered adsorption air-conditioning
system and installed it in a green building. The solar-powered
air-conditioning system outputs an average power of 15.3 kW
and a maximum power of 20 kW. A review of a solar-powered ejec-
tor air conditioner is presented in [24]. The paper also analyses dif-
ferent cycles, one with compression enhancements and another
without. In general, the main application of a solar-powered pho-
tothermal air-conditioning system is the cooling of an entire
building.
Although many researchers have studied solar-powered air-
conditioning systems, limited research has been conducted on
applying one to a vehicle cabin. Abraham et al. [25] described a
photovoltaic thermoelectric refrigerator for car heat dissipation.
The group manufactured a small experimental prototype, and the
results show that the temperature inside the cabin can be cooled
to the ambient temperature. Another study [26] developed a solar
powered cooling device for an electric car. The device in this study
was installed in an electric car cabin, and the simulation results
demonstrate that the proposed device can effectively displace the
hot air with cooler ambient air. Zhang et al. [27] designed a
solar-powered air-conditioning system for a vehicle including a
foldable solar energy collector mechanism and an air-
conditioning system powered by solar photovoltaic panels. Zhang
et al. [28] proposed a phase-change material cooling device for
vehicles. The proposed device changes phase to absorb heat from
the air inside a car.
All this research makes it clear that solar-powered cooling sys-
tems are currently a hot topic. To meet the demands of thermal
comfort and reduce fuel consumption and emissions, this paper
presents a novel portable solar-powered cooling system for a vehi-
cle cabin. For sake of portability and easy installation, wireless
power transfer technology is applied to avoid a tangle of wires that
will need to perforate the cabin. In recent decades, wireless power
transfer has attracted more and more researches, such as charging
electric vehicles, powering a biomedical capsule endoscope, and
discussing the losses analysis [29–31].
The structure of the rest of this paper is as follows. In Section 2,
a general overview of the proposed solar-powered cooling system’s
design is given, including a solar collector mechanism, an energy
conduit, a temperature control and a cooling model. Then Section 3
models and analyses the proposed system. Section 4 provides the
experimental details and results for both the field experiments
and the simulation experiments. Section 5 presents a discussion
of the implications of the results. Finally, the study’s conclusions
are presented in Section 6.
2. System design
The proposed portable solar-powered cooling system as shown
in Fig. 1, consists of three parts: a solar collector mechanism,
energy conduit, and a temperature control and cooling module.
When parked outdoors, place the solar collector mechanism on
the roof of the vehicle. The solar collector mechanism, on which
the solar PV panels are installed, is designed to use folding solar
PV panels to increase portability. When the system is operating,
the solar collector mechanism unfolds the solar PV panels to the
proper angle to collect as much solar energy as possible.
The energy conduit transfers energy from the solar PV panels to
336 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343

Fig. 1. Flowchart of the proposed portable solar-powered cooling system.

the wireless power transfer unit and the supercapacitor. The solar
energy is then transformed to electrical energy, which is stored in
the supercapacitor. The temperature control and cooling module
can control the operation of the proposed system including obtain-
ing the cabin temperature with the temperature sensor, starting
the DC motor to unfold the solar PV panels, and enabling the cool-
ing device. To decrease the temperature inside the vehicle, the pro-
totype presented in this paper uses a small fan in the cooling
module. Before driving, the solar collector mechanism must be
folded and put away inside the cabin or trunk. Fig. 2 is a theoretical
diagram of the proposed portable solar-powered cooling system
that illustrates the system setup.

2.1. Solar collector mechanism

The solar collector mechanism is designed as shown in Fig. 3.

This mechanism contains ‘‘M-shape” linkages, ‘‘N-shape” link strut
rods, a small DC driving motor, a ball screw and a transparent box,
which are labelled in Fig. 3b. The overall size of this design
is145  175  455mm. The weight of the solar collector mecha-
nism is 3.5 kg. As presented in Fig. 3c and d, the portable solar col-
lector mechanism is placed on the roof of the cabin for parking
time. In Fig. 3c, the mechanism is unfolded, preparing for solar
energy harvesting. Fig. 3d shows the mechanism folded when not
in operation, and need to be put away inside cabin or trunk. The
solar collector mechanism is folded and unfolded by the DC motor
and ball screw. The solar PV panels are fixed on the symmetrical
‘‘M-shape” linkages. Each set of ‘‘M-shape” linkages is made of a
Fig. 2. Theoretical diagram of the proposed portable solar-powered cooling system.
hinge connected head to tail. The ‘‘M-shape” linkage base consists
of two ‘‘N-shape” link strut rods. The small DC motor is connected
through the coupling by the screw. The screw-nuts can move for-
ward to close the ‘‘N-shape” link strut rods or backward to open
them, depending on the motor rotation direction. Therefore, the
clockwise or anticlockwise rotation of the motor can be converted
into the linear opening and closing motions of the solar panels,
respectively. Two switches are placed in the extreme movement
 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343
Fig. 3. View of the solar collector mechanism.
positions of the solar panels to restrict their movement. The trans-
parent portable box can be connected to the car roof.
2.2. Energy conduit
Fig. 4 shows the energy flow of the proposed system. The solar
PV panels collect solar energy and output electricity. Next, the
wireless power transfer unit delivers electricity through the vehi-
cle roof without perforating it. The DC/DC converter regulates the
output to the set point voltage, and the controller controls the
charging and discharging of the supercapacitor. Finally, the cooling
device consumes the electricity stored in the supercapacitor.
As shown in Fig. 5, the energy conduit consists of three main
parts: solar PV panels, a wireless power transfer unit, and a super-
capacitor. The solar PV panels convert solar energy to the desired
electrical energy. Each monocrystalline silicon solar module pro-
vides 6 V and 150 mA electricity for the system with the size of
110 mm  60 mm. Through series and parallel connections, all of
the solar PV panels can provide electricity totalling 12 V and
9 W. To avoid a jumble of wires the need of perforate the cabin,
the proposed system uses wireless power transfer to transmit elec-
tricity from the roof to the cabin. The input voltage and most load-
ing current of the WPT are 12 V and 1.3 A respectively, while the
output voltage and output current are 5 V and 1.5 A respectively.
The outside diameter of the coil is 43 mm. The efficiency of the
WPT based on magnetic coupling resonance is about 60–70%, and
the maximum transmission distance is 20 mm.
2.3. Temperature control and cooling module
When a vehicle is parked outdoors, the solar collector mecha-
nism is placed on the car roof, and the main switch of the portable
solar-powered cooling system is turned on. The motor starts run-
Solar PV Wireless Power
DC/DC
Panels Transfer Unit
Cooling
Supercapacitor Controller
Device
Fig. 4. Energy flow.
337
Fig. 5. Installation of the main parts of the energy conduit.
ning, the solar PV panels are unfolded, and the conversion of the
solar energy to electrical energy begins. The electricity is stored
in the supercapacitor via wireless power transfer. The temperature
control and cooling module detects and regulates the cabin tem-
perature in real time using the sensor. After sufficient sun expo-
sure, the temperature inside the cabin will exceed a pre-set
threshold which is 30 °C. Then, the temperature control switches
on, and the cooling device starts. The supercapacitor supplies the
electricity to the cooling device, until the cabin temperature is
reduced to its threshold value.
The system can also be controlled via Bluetooth. An application
has been developed for Android mobile phones. Users can operate
the proposed system from their mobile phones in advance, so that
the cooling process will be complete before the users step into the
car.
The cooling device presented in this paper is shown in Fig. 6(a).
The nominal voltage of the small fan is 5 V. Fig. 6(b) illustrates the
cooling process.
3. Modelling and analysis
3.1. Solar collector mechanism
A model of the solar collector mechanism is shown in Fig. 7,
where v1 is the velocity of the rectilinear motion of the ball screw,
rm is the revolving speed of the DC motor. P represents the screw
lead. The relationship between them can be expressed as
v 1 ¼ P  rm ð1Þ
(a) Cooling device (b) Cooling effect
Fig. 6. View of the cooling device.
338 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343

360
B ¼ ðn  1Þ ð7Þ
365
where n is the day of the year, with a range from 1 to 365.
Lloc  Lst E
T ¼tþ þ ð8Þ
15 60

x ¼ 15ðT  12Þ ð9Þ

where T represents the local solar time (h); h is the solar hour angle
(°); t is the standard time (h - in this paper, t is Beijing time); Lst is
the standard meridian for the local time zone (in this paper, Lst is
120° East); and Lloc is the longitude of the location in question
(the longitude of Chengdu is 104.06° East).
sin as ¼ sin u sin d þ cos u cos d cos x ð10Þ
Fig. 7. Analysis of the solar collector mechanism.
sin cs ¼ cos d sin x= cos as ð11Þ

c ¼ c 0 þ 2v 1 t ð2Þ where as represents the solar altitude angle (°); cs stands for the
solar azimuth angle (°); and u is the latitude of the location (the lat-
As it is a right triangle, the displacement (L) between a and c can be itude of Chengdu is 30.67° North).
obtained by Pythagorean Theorem, which is expressed as
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
a  c2 3.3. Solar radiation
2
L¼ b  ð3Þ
2
3.3.1. Beam radiation
Taking the derivative of L, v2 means the velocity of L. The beam radiation of the plane normal to the solar rays can be
v 2 ¼ dL=dt ð4Þ expressed as:

Fig. 8 shows the result of L and v2. At the first 2 s, the displace- Ibr ¼ Gsc Pm ð12Þ
ment (L) increased very fast, which is also proved by the curve of where Gsc represents a solar constant, which is 1367 W/m ; and m2
velocity (v2). Then the velocity decreased slowly till it stopped. is the air mass, which can be written as:

3.2. Sun position 1

m¼ ð13Þ
sin as
Duffie and Beckman [32] put forward the following expressions The beam radiation of the horizontal plane and slant plane are
to estimate the declination of the sun (d) and the time correction expressed as:
factor (E).
0 1 IbH ¼ Ibr sin as ð14Þ
0:006918  0:399912 cos B þ 0:070257 sin B
B C
d ¼ ð180=pÞ@ 0:006758 cos 2B þ 0:000907 sin 2B A Ibb ¼ Ibr ðsin as cos b þ cos as cos cs sin bÞ ð15Þ
0:002697 cos 3B þ 0:001480 sin 3B
where b is the slope angle of the plane (°).
ð5Þ
  3.3.2. Diffuse radiation
0:000075 þ 0:001868 cos B  0:032077 sin B The diffuse radiation of the horizontal plane is given as:
E ¼ 229:2 ð6Þ
0:014615 cos 2B  0:04089 sin 2B
1  Pm
IdH ¼ 0:5Gsc sin as ð16Þ
1  1:4 ln P
And the diffuse radiation of the slant surface is written as:
b
Idb ¼ cos2 IdH ð17Þ
2
where IdH is the diffuse radiation of the horizontal plane (W/m2),
and Idb is the diffuse radiation of the plane with an angle b to the
horizontal plane (W/m2).
For a slant surface, the total solar radiation can be expressed as:
IR ¼ Ibb þ Idb ð18Þ
Fig. 9 shows the different solar radiation on a horizontal plane
in different days during one year, in Chengdu. The maximal solar
radiation can reach 1356 W/m2 in 20th Jun. While even in 21st
Dec. the solar radiation can achieve 801 W/m2.

3.4. Power generation of PV cell

For the sake of obtaining output power of the PV cell, the equiv-
alent circuit model of PV cell with single diode was designed, as
Fig. 8. Simulation of the solar collector mechanism. shown in Fig. 10. According to the equivalent circuit diagram, the
 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343 339

Fig. 9. Simulation for solar radiation of one year in Chengdu.

Fig. 11. Wireless power transmission model.

Fig. 10. The equivalent circuit model of PV cell with single diode.

correlativity between the output voltage (V) and output current (I)
of PV cell can be written as
   
qðV þ IRS Þ V þ IRS
I ¼ Iph  Isat exp 1  ð19Þ
AkT Rsh
Fig. 12. Experimental environment of solar energy powered cooling system.
where Iph and Isat are the photo-generated current and reverse sat-
uration current when there is no light on the PV cell, respectively.
Table 1
The Rs and Rsh are the equivalent series resistance and equivalent
Different parameters in six conditions.
parallel resistance, respectively. A, K and T are the ideal perfor-
mance coefficient of diode, Boltzmann constant and absolute tem- Serial number Load resistance (X) Distance between
induction coils (mm)
perature of PV cell.
The maximum power output of the PV cell is expressed as No. 1 3 0
No. 2 3 5
Pm ¼ Isc V oc F F ð20Þ No. 3 3 10
No. 4 5 0
where Voc and Isc are the open-circuit voltage and short-circuit cur- No. 5 5 5
No. 6 5 10
rent, respectively, and FF is Fill Factor (0.75  08). Therefore, the
photoelectric conversion efficiency of PV cell (g1) can be given by

F F Isc V oc tance of transmitting coil and internal resistance of receiving coil,

g1 ¼  100% ð21Þ
Pin respectively. The inductance of transmitting coil and receiving coil
are L1 and L2, respectively. The capacitance of transmitting coil and
where Pin was the input power of the PV cell.
receiving coil are given by C1 and C2, respectively. The M is the
coefficient of mutual induction between the transmitting coil and
3.5. Wireless power transfer
the receiving coil. RL stands for load resistance. The output power
(Po) and energy transfer efficiency (g2) of the wireless power trans-
The wireless power transfer system model and equivalent cir-
fer system are given by
cuit model of this system were developed, as shown in Fig. 11 (a)
and (b), respectively. Where the Uin and Uo are the high- U 2in RL
Po ¼ ð22Þ
frequency power supply and load voltage, respectively. R1 and R2 2 R21 ðR2 þRL Þ2
x2 M þ x2 M2
þ 2R1 ðR2 þ RL Þ
are the sum of the eternal resistance of power and internal resis-
340 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
x2 RL pl N1 N2 ðr1 r2 Þ2
g2 ¼ R1 ðR2 þRL Þ2
ð23Þ M¼ 3
ð24Þ
x2 ðR2 þ RL Þ þ M2
2d

Moreover, the mutual inductance is affected by the distance where l is permeability of the medium. The N1 and N2 were the cir-
between the transmitting coil and receiving coil which the rela- cle number of the transmitting coil and receiving coil, respectively.
tionship can be expressed as the following The radius of the transmitting coil and receiving coil were r1 and r2,

(a) 3 , 0mm. (d) 5 , 0mm.

(b) 3 , 5mm. (e) 5 , 5mm.

(c) 3 , 10mm. (f) 5 , 10mm.

Fig. 13. Power curves in field test for WPT at different solar radiation.
 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343 341

respectively. The distance the between the transmitting coil and Table 2
receiving coil was given by d. By comparing Eqs. (22) and (24), Experimental results from Fig. 13.

the following expression can be obtained. Fig. 13 Load resistance Peak power (W)

U 2in RL Before WPT After WPT

Po ¼ h i2 ð25Þ (a) 3X 2.025 1.001
x2 A2 R1 ðR2 þRL Þ
d6 þ xA þ 2R1 ðR2 þ RL Þ (b) 4.173 2.181
(c) 3.046 0.32
Similarly, by comparing Eqs. (23) and (24), the following (d) 5X 2.016 1.145
expression can be obtained. (e) 3.307 1.995
(f) 3.163 1.62
x2 RL
g2 ¼ 2
ð26Þ
x2 ðR2 þ RL Þ þ R1 ðR2AþR
2
LÞ
d
6

Under the condition of other factors which cause energy loss are
neglected, the total energy transfer efficiency, g, was evaluated by
g ¼ g1 g2
Therefore, the output power of the whole system was calculated
by
Pout ¼ Pin g
4. Experimental details
As shown in Fig. 12, the experiment comprises the proposed
system, the solar simulator, a pyranometer, a data recorder, and
a multimeter.
The prototype of solar energy powered cooling system is
manufactured for the experiment to evaluate the performance of
the proposed system. The solar simulator is installed high that
can simulate the different solar irradiance in the range of
0–1100 W/m2. As shown in Fig. 9, the solar irradiance in daytime
(8:00 am–18:00 pm) during summer days are higher than
500 W/m2, so we simulate the solar irradiance in the range of
500–1100 W/m2. A pyranometer placed under the solar simulator
is periodically gauging the solar irradiance intensity every 5 s dur-
ing the experiment. The multimeter is used to measure the voltage
and current signal at different places in the circuit, for example, the
voltage and current signals before WPT, and the voltage and current
signals after WPT. For sake of convenient measurement, the cooling
device is replaced by the load resistances, and the resistance values
are 3X and 5X. In order to test the performance of wireless power
transfer, we set 3 distance values, as (1) no distance; (2) 1 piece of
glass; and (3) 2 pieces of glasses between the transmitter coil and
receiving coil. The thickness of every piece of glass is 5 mm.
Six experimental conditions according to Nos. 1–6, are set up
with different load resistances and distances between the
induction coils, which are listed in Table 1.
The maximum output power appeared as 2.181 W shown in
Fig. 13(b), while the maximum efficiency of WPT is 60.3% as shown
ð27Þ in Fig. 13(e). As the distance between the induction coils increased,
both the power before WPT and after WPT rises first and fall later.
This appearance is caused mainly by the distance transfer charac-
teristics of the WPT. For the magnetic resonant WPT system, there
ð28Þ is a best distance for the power transfer. When the solar irradiance
is same, the power and efficiency of the system circuit increase
first and then decrease as the distance increased. As shown in
Fig. 13(c) and (f), when the distance is 10 mm, the powers reached
a maximum value and did not increase again as the solar irradiance
increased. One thing distinguished solar PV panels from other kind
of power source is that the output voltage and current change with
different load, results in the change of output power. Therefore,
there must be an optimal load resistance which lead to a maximum
output power.
Regarding the efficiency curves, when the distances are same,
the efficiencies of the WPT that load a 5 X resistance are always
higher than that load 3 X resistance.
The highest solar irradiance is 1100 W/m2 because of the output
power limit of this solar simulator. When the transfer distance is
optimal, the system operate well and the output power is smooth
when the solar irradiance or the area of solar PV panels increased.
Limited by the size of the solar simulator, it’s difficult to do the
field test on the real vehicle cabin to study the thermal perfor-
mance of the prototype.
To simulate the cabin temperature, we used SOLIDWORKS to
build a cabin model with the size of about 3177 mm 
1408.5 mm  1246.5 mm, as shown in Fig. 14. The model was

5. Results and discussion

The power and efficiency curves of the proposed system in dif-

ferent load resistance and difference distance between the induc-
tion coils are shown in Fig. 13, and all the waveforms of the Fig. 14. The temperature distribution inside the cabin.
conditions occur to be similar with a tendency of increase by the
enhancement of the solar irradiance. In Fig. 13(a)–(f) are the power
and efficiency curves of the six conditions as shown in Table 1, Table 3
where the serial numbers are consistent with Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Specification parameters.
and 6.
Surfaces Area (m2) Slope (°) Radiation (W/m2)
Table 2 shows the experimental results from Fig. 13. When the
load resistance is 3 X, the peak powers before WPT, are 2.025 W, Windshield 1.178 30 1021.4
Side windows 1.023  2 90 176.6
4.173 W and 3.046 W, and the peak powers after WPT are Rear Window 1.020 60 108.3
1.001 W, 2.181 W and 0.320 W. As shown in Fig. 13(d)–(f), when Roof 3.643 0 1053.4
the load resistance is 5 X, the peak powers before WPT, are Side gates 2.834  2 90 176.6
2.016 W, 3.307 W and 3.163 W, and the peak powers after WPT Tailboard 1.524 90 54.1
Floor 5.828 0 0
are 1.145 W, 1.995 W and 1.620 W.
342 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343

imported to GAMBIT for pre-processing such as meshing and

setting the boundary and continuum types, and the mesh files
were exported to FLUENT 14.5 to solve the equations. The specifi-
cation parameters of the numerical simulation are shown in
Table 3.
For this model, two situations are evaluated: sitting under the
blazing sun; and running the proposed system while sitting under
the blazing sun. When the proposed system is used, the tempera-
ture and wind speed are 28 °C and 5 m/s. To simplify the calcula-
tions, we make some assumptions:

(1) The air inside the cabin is ideal and incompressible.

(2) The cabin is well-sealed.
(3) The air flow inside the cabin is a steady turbulent flow; and
(4) The temperature of every wall is fixed and is the same as the
integrated temperature of the corresponding faces.
From the software we obtain the results shown in Figs. 15 and
16.
Fig. 15 shows the simulated results on the two planes of the
cabin shown in Fig. 14, to compare the temperatures inside the
cabin. To illustrate fully the effect of the proposed system,
we take a line in each plane and its associated data and then
draw the graphs of Fig. 16(a) and (b). In Fig. 16 there is a gap
in each curve. The gap occurs because the line goes through
the seat, and the seat area is removed during modelling time.
The benefits of the proposed system are very obvious, with aver-
age temperature reductions of 3.0 °C and 3.5 °C, and a maximum
temperature reduction of about 8 °C.

Fig. 16. Temperature along lines inside the cabin.

6. Conclusions

A portable solar-powered cooling system with wireless power

transfer technology is developed for a vehicle cabin. The experi-
mental results show that the output power is in phase with solar
irradiance. Moreover, a peak output power of 2.181 W and a peak
efficiency of WPT of 60.3% are generated from the prototype when
the load resistances are 3X and 5X respectively. The achieved out-
put power and high efficiency indicate that the proposed solar
energy-powered cooling system is effective and feasible in cooling
a hot cabin. If the proposed system in this paper matches with PV
panels in larger areas, the output power may be higher to power
the higher power fan, which will make a better cooling effect.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-

Fig. 15. Temperature distribution inside the cabin.
dation of China under Grant No. 51675451, by the Science and
Technology Projects of Sichuan and Chengdu under Grant Nos.
2016GZ0026, 2017RZ0056 and 2015-HM01-00338-SF, and by the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under
Grant No. 2682016ZDPY03. The first four authors contributed
equally to this work. The asterisk indicates the author to whom
all correspondence should be directed.
 H. Pan et al. / Applied Energy 195 (2017) 334–343 343

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