Near-field resonant-based wireless power transfer (WPT) technology has a significant impact in many applications ranging from charging of biomedical implants to electric vehicles (EVs). The design of robust WPT systems is challenging due to its position-dependent power transfer efficiency (PTE). In this paper, a new approach is presented to address WPT's strong sensitivity to the coupling factor variation between the transmit and receive coils. The introduced technique relies on harnessing the unique properties of a specific class of nonlinear resonant circuits to design position-insensitive WPT systems that maintain a high PTE over large transmission distances and misalignments without tuning the source's operating frequency or employing tunable matching networks, as well as any active feedback/control circuitry. A nonlinear-resonant-based WPT circuit capable of transmitting 60 W at 2.25 MHz is designed and fabricated. The circuit maintains a high PTE of 86% over a transmission distance variation of 20 cm. Furthermore, transmit power and PTE are maintained over a large lateral misalignment up to ±50% of the coil diameter and angular misalignment up to ±75°. The new design approach enhances the performance of WPT systems by significantly extending the range of coupling factors over which both load power and high PTE are maintained.
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Asymmetric Wireless Power Transfer with a Flexible Contact Lens Inductor
This paper reports the microfabrication of a Galinstan-based flexible coil on a contact lens and its preliminary use for wireless power transfer onto a smart contact lens. The Galinstan-based coil provides accommodation against physical deformation of a contact lens by maintaining electrical conductivity under strains due to its semi-fluidic nature. The fabricated Galinstan-coils successfully demonstrated post-deformation tolerance up to 166.67% strain. The fabricated contact lens prototype with a Galinstan-coil showed the maximum wireless power reception of 32.4 μW with a power efficiency of 0.75% from an external coil located 5 mm away within a frame of eyeglasses.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1932602
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10402739
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 21st International Conference on Micro and Nanotechnology for Power Generation and Energy Conversion Applications (PowerMEMS)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 54 to 57
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/PowerMEMS56853.2022.10007576
