Vehicle power coupling apparatus

摘要

A theft prevention system 230 for an electrical roadway apparatus is provided. The electrical roadway apparatus provides inductive power coupling to one or more vehicles travelling on the roadway . The electrical roadway apparatus includes one or more drive units for exciting one or more drive coil arrangements 40 disposed in the roadway 220. The theft prevention system includes a sensing arrangement for detecting abrupt changes in one or more electrical characteristics of cables 310 employed to implement the drive coil arrangements, and a theft detection and notification arrangement for receiving signals from the sensing arrangement for detecting and notifying an event of theft to a security facility 100 for summoning assistance. Low frequency signal interrogation of the cables may be used to determine the electrical characteristics. The antitheft arrangement may comprise a conductor 320 running spatially concurrent with the drive coil conductors. The sensing arrangement may sense the Q factor and/or the resistance of the cable. The theft detection and notification arrangement may indicate the location of the affected cable and/or whether it has been affected by theft or failure.