Overcoming coil misalignment using magnetic fields of induced currents in wireless power transmission

Abstract

Coil Misalignment in wireless power transfer links that use inductive coupling has limited the wireless power transfer efficiency considerably. Motion artifacts leading to coil misalignments also results in intermittent power outage at the receiving coil. In this paper, we address these issues using the concept of flux sharing between three coils. By using magnetic fields of induced currents in an intermediate coil, the flux linkage between a traditional two coil inductive power links can be improved. We present the analysis of inductive power links with intermediate coils and compare their improved performance with the conventional wireless power links. The mitigation of detrimental effects of motion artifacts is also discussed. All the theoretical results augur well with the measured results. © 2012 IEEE.