\n Media contact:<\/strong> Kayla Albert, wiles5@purdue.edu<\/a>, 765-494-2432 <\/p>\n <\/div>\n Note to journalists:<\/p>\n \n High-resolution photos and video of Purdue researchers testing their wireless charging system with an electric heavy-duty truck on a highway segment in Indiana are available via Google Drive<\/a>. A video interview<\/a> about this project is also accessible to media who have an Associated Press subscription. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 For the first time in the U.S., a roadway has wirelessly charged an electric heavy-duty truck driving at highway speeds, demonstrating key technology that could help lower the costs of building electrified highways for all electric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":18664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"department":[],"source":[29],"purdue_today_topic":[],"coauthors":[131],"class_list":["post-18677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-excellence","source-purdue-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18692,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18677\/revisions\/18692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18677"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=18677"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=18677"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=18677"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The team also partnered with AECOM; White Construction, Inc.; and PC Krause and Associates, Inc. on developing and implementing various parts of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith this breakthrough system, Purdue has shown that powering large commercial vehicles wirelessly is not just technically feasible but could be a practical and scalable solution for real-world highway transportation,\u201d said Nadia Gkritza<\/a>, a Purdue professor of civil and construction engineering<\/a> and agricultural and biological engineering<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demonstration is part of a multistage research project that Purdue and INDOT began in 2018. In addition to its funding from INDOT through the Joint Transportation Research Program<\/a> at Purdue, the project is affiliated with a fourth-generation National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center called Advancing Self-sufficiency through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification (ASPIRE)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cINDOT is proud to partner with Purdue on this project,\u201d said INDOT Commissioner Lyndsay Quist. \u201cWhile there is still more to explore, we are seeing what the future could hold for heavy-duty EV charging and transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Purdue system demonstrates \u201cdynamic wireless power transfer,\u201d with \u201cdynamic\u201d referring to vehicles in motion. A few other states and countries have also begun testing roads designed to enable dynamic wireless power transfer. But making this possible for highways \u2014 and particularly for semis and other heavy-duty vehicles \u2014 is a unique challenge. Because vehicles travel so much faster on highways than city roads, they need to be charged at higher power levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Purdue-designed wireless charging system works at power levels much higher than what has been demonstrated in the U.S. so far. Using the test segment in West Lafayette, this system delivered 190 kilowatts to a truck traveling at 65 miles per hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo put that in perspective, 200 kilowatts are on the scale of about a hundred homes,\u201d said Steve Pekarek<\/a>, Purdue\u2019s Edmund O. Schweitzer, III Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By accommodating the higher power needs for heavy-duty vehicles, the Purdue design is also able to support the lower power needs of other vehicle classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a system designed to work for the heaviest class of trucks all the way down to passenger vehicles,\u201d said Aaron Brovont<\/a>, a research assistant professor in Purdue\u2019s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since trucking contributes the most to U.S. gross domestic product<\/a> compared to other modes of freight transportation, lowering costs for heavy-duty electric trucks could help attract more investment into electrifying highways that all vehicle classes would share. If electric heavy-duty trucks could charge or stay charged using highways, their batteries could be smaller in size and they could carry more cargo, significantly reducing the costs of using EVs for freight transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Electrified highways could also allow the batteries of passenger cars to be smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTwo of the big barriers to electric vehicle adoption, at least to the public, are range anxiety \u2014 \u2018Oh, my gosh, where am I going to charge the battery on this car?\u2019 \u2014 and the second thing is cost,\u201d said John Haddock<\/a>, a professor in Purdue\u2019s Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering. \u201cAnd a lot of that cost in electric vehicles is driven by the size of the battery packs that they have to have in order to get you that 250-to-300-mile range. With this system, you\u2019d be able to drive your vehicle down the road and it would charge the battery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The system Purdue researchers designed allows highway pavement to provide power to EVs similarly to how smartphones use magnetic fields to wirelessly charge when placed on a pad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTransferring power through a magnetic field at these relatively large distances is challenging. And what makes it more challenging is doing it for a heavy-duty vehicle moving at power levels thousands of times higher than what smartphones receive,\u201d said Dionysios Aliprantis<\/a>, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team installed transmitter coils in specially dedicated lanes within the concrete pavement. The coils send power to receiver coils attached to the truck\u2019s underside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCummins is proud to play a role in this initiative by successfully adapting a prototype Class 8 battery-electric truck to integrate with Purdue\u2019s high-power dynamic wireless power transfer system,\u201d said John Kresse, chief technology engineer at Cummins. \u201cThe on-road testing went exceptionally well, thanks to strong collaboration between our teams. With its high power and promising cost structure, this technology represents a practical, and potentially game-changing, solution for the future of on-highway commercial transportation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other wireless EV charging efforts are also using transmitter and receiver coils, but they haven\u2019t been designed for the higher power levels that heavy-duty trucks need. The Purdue-designed coils accommodate a wider power range \u2014 larger vehicles wouldn\u2019t need multiple low-power receiver coils on the trailer to charge from the road, which has been proposed to meet the high-power demands. Instead, in the Purdue design, a single receiver coil assembly is placed under the tractor, greatly simplifying the overall system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdue researchers have also designed the transmitter coils to work within concrete pavement, which often carries the heaviest traffic even though it only makes up 20% of the U.S. interstate system<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most real-world deployments of wireless pavement charging in the U.S. are led by members of ASPIRE. Purdue is a founding member of ASPIRE, and Gkritza is the campus director of ASPIRE\u2019s Purdue location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Headquartered at Utah State University, ASPIRE integrates academia, scientific research, and real-world tests and deployments across more than 400 members from 10 partner universities: Purdue, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Texas at El Paso, the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Colorado State University, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Cornell University, and the University of Utah. These universities are joined by more than 70 industry, government and nonprofit members across all sections of the electric transportation ecosystem, as well as community partners and advisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis achievement reflects how our growing ecosystem connects public agencies, private industry and academic research to turn electrification goals into reality, demonstrating the kind of collaboration that strengthens the foundation for scaling intelligent electrified transportation systems nationwide,\u201d said Don Linford, ASPIRE\u2019s director of industry and ecosystem engagement at Utah State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team\u2019s system has also been part of further testing to help develop industry standards for dynamic wireless power transfer. The hope is that these standards would encourage the industry to adopt the technology, which is a critical step needed for roadway operators and departments of transportation in each state to consider investing in infrastructure enabling EVs to charge while driving. The researchers additionally plan to demonstrate their design for a variety of vehicle classes, including light-duty passenger cars and trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In April, the Purdue team received the Technology Innovation Award<\/a> at the IEEE PES Energy and Policy Forum Innovation Showcase<\/a> for their work on this system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis project is a flagship example of a successful public-private partnership, positioning Purdue and ASPIRE for long-term leadership in electrified transportation,\u201d Gkritza said. \u201cIt\u2019s also been a remarkable \u2018lab-to-life\u2019 learning experience for our students \u2014 an opportunity to see how fundamental research can translate into real-world infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers have disclosed their innovation to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a>, which has applied for a patent on the intellectual property. Industry partners interested in developing or commercializing the work should contact Matt Halladay, senior business development manager and licensing manager, physical sciences, at mrhalladay@prf.org<\/a> about track codes 2022-ALIP-69682, 2024-PEKA-70401 and 2024-PEKA-70402.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue\u2019s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap \u2014 including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative \u2014 at https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/president\/strategic-initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/evhighway-truck.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Why design electrified highways for trucks first?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Highways that charge EVs like a smartphone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Developing the industry standard for building electrified highways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Rectangular](\"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/evhighway-pads.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
About Purdue University<\/h2>\n\n\n\n