In this letter, we propose a novel wireless power transfer (WPT) scheme in the radiative near-field (Fresnel) region, which based on machine vision and dynamically reconfigurable holographic metasurface aperture capable of focusing power to multiple spots simultaneously without any information feedback. The states of metamaterial elements, formed by tunable meander line resonators, is determined using holographic design principles, in which the interference pattern of reference mode and the desired radiated field pattern leads to the required phase distribution over the surface of the aperture. The three-dimensional position information of mobile point sources is determined by machine visual localization, which can be used to obtain the aperture field. In contrast to the existing research studies, the proposed scheme is not only designed to achieve free multi-focuses, but also with machine vision, low-dimensionality, high transmission efficiency, real-time continuous reconfigurability and so on. The accuracy of the analysis is confirmed using numerical simulation.

A retrodirective system utilizing harmonic reradiation from a rectenna is developed and verified for long-range wireless power transfer applications, such as low-power or battery-less devices and lightweight aerial vehicles. The second harmonic generated by the rectifying circuit is used instead of a pilot signal, and thus an oscillator for creating the pilot signal is not required. The proposed retrodirective system consists of a 2.45 GHz transmitter with a two-element phased array antenna, a 4.9 GHz direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation system, a phase control system, and a rectenna. The rectenna, consisting of a half-wave dipole antenna, receives microwave power from the 2.45 GHz transmitter and reradiates the harmonic toward the 4.9 GHz DoA estimation system. The rectenna characteristics and experimental demonstrations of the proposed retrodirective system are described. From measurement results, the dc output power pattern for the developed retrodirective system is in good agreement with that obtained using manual beam steering. The measured DoA estimation errors are within the range of -2.4° to 4.8°.

This paper looks into the underlying RF energy harvesting issues at low input ambient power levels below 0 dBm where efficiency degradation is severe. The proposed design aims to improve the rectenna sensitivity, efficiency, and output DC power. In the same manner, we are using a straightforward and compact size rectenna design. The receiving antenna is a coplanar waveguide (CPW) slot monopole antenna with harmonic suppression property and a peak measured gain of 3 dBi. Also, an improved antenna radiation characteristics, e.g radiation pattern and gain covering the desired operating band (ISM 2.45 GHz), is observed. The rectifier is a voltage doubler circuit based on microstrip (MS) structure. Two architectures of rectenna were carefully designed, fabricated and tested. The first layout; antenna, and rectifier were fabricated separately and then connected using a connector. The peak efficiency (40% at -5 dBm) achieved is lower than expected. To improve the efficiency, a high compactness and simple integration between antenna and rectifier are achieved by using a smooth CPW-MS transition. This design shows improved conversion efficiency measurement results which typically agree with the simulation results. The measured peak conversion efficiency is 72% at RF power level of -7 dBm and a load resistance of 2 kΩ.

This paper investigates energy-efficient resource allocation problem for the wireless power transfer (WPT) enabled multi-user massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In the considered systems, the sensor nodes (SNs) are firstly powered by WPT from the power beacon (PB) with a large scale of antennas. Then, the SNs use the harvested energy to transmit the data to the base station (BS) with multiple antennas. The problem of optimizing the energy efficiency objective is formulated with the consideration of maximum transmission power of the PB and the quality of service (QoS) of the SNs. By adopting fractional programming, the energy-efficient optimization problem is firstly converted into a subtractive form. Then, a joint power and time allocation algorithm based on the block coordinate descent and Dinkelbach method is proposed to maximize energy efficiency. Finally, simulation results show the proposed algorithm achieves a good compromise between the spectrum efficiency and total power consumption.

It is well known that the power transfer efficiency (PTE) of a wireless power transfer (WPT) system is maximized at a specific coupling coefficient under the fixed system parameters. For an adaptive WPT system, various attempts have been made to achieve the maximum PTE by changing the system parameters. Applying the input matching networks to the WPT system is one of the most popular implementation methods to change the source impedance and improve the PTE. In this paper, we derive the optimum source condition for the given load and the achievable maximum PTE under the optimum source condition in a closed-form. Furthermore, we propose a method to estimate the input impedance, without feedback information, and an input matching network structure that transforms the source impedance into the optimum source obtained from the estimated input impedance. The proposed technique is successfully implemented at a resonant frequency of 13.56MHz. The experimental results are in close agreement with the theoretical achievable maximum PTE and show that the use of only a single matching network can sufficiently achieve a PTE close to the ideal maximum PTE.

Wireless information and power transfer technology is a promising means of supplying power for remote terminals in future communication systems. This paper investigates time-splitting (TS) recource allocation schemes for multi-cell massive MIMO systems with downlink (DL) wireless power transfer and uplink (UL) user information transmission under a harvest-then-transmit protocol. In order to jointly optimize the power and time allocation, two power minimization problems are formulated under different constraints on the minimal quality-of-service (QoS) requirement. Then, these original non-convex problems are transformed into their convex approximated ones which can be solved iteratively by successive convex approximation. Simulation results show that by exploiting the diversity effect of large-scale antenna arrays, the complexity-reduced asymptotic recourse allocation scheme almost match the power efficiency of the nonasymptotic scheme.

Wireless power transfer (WPT) via coupled magnetic resonances has more than ten years history of development. However, it appears frequency splitting phenomenon in the over-coupled region, thus, the output power of the two-coil WPT system achieves the maximum output power at the two splitting angular frequencies and not at the natural resonant angular frequency. By investigating the relationship between the impedances of the transmitter side and receiver side, we found that WPT system is a power superposition system, and the reasons were given to explaining how to appear the frequency splitting and impact on the maximum output power of the system in details. First, the circuit model was established and transfer characteristics of the two-coil WPT system were studied by utilizing circuit theories. Second, the mechanism of the power superposition of the WPT system was carefully researched. Third, the relationship between the impedances of the transmitter side and receiver side was obtained by investigating the impedance characteristics of a two-coil WPT system, and also the impact factors of the maximum output power of the system were obtained by using a power superposition mechanism. Finally, the experimental circuit was designed and experimental results are well consistent with the theoretical analysis.

This paper describes a top-down design methodology to optimize resonant capacitance in a wireless power transfer system with 3-D stacked two receivers. A 1:2 selective wireless power transfer is realized by a frequency/time division multiplexing scheme. The power transfer function is analytically formulated and the optimum tuning capacitance is derived, which is validated by comparing with system simulation results. By using the optimized values, power transfer efficiencies at 6.78MHz and 13.56MHz are simulated to be 80% and 84%, respectively, which are <3% worse than a conventional wireless power transfer system.

The impedance expansion method (IEM), which has been previously proposed by the authors, is a circuit-modeling technique for electrically-very-small devices. This paper provides a new idea on the principle of undesired radiation in wireless power transfer systems by employing IEM. In particular, it is shown that the undesired radiation is due to equivalent infinitesimal dipoles and loops of the currents on the coils.

This paper presents a novel circuit for impedance matching to a load moving along a transmission line. This system is called FERMAT: Far-End Reactor MATching. The FERMAT consists of a power transmission line and a variable reactor at its far-end. The proposed system moves standing-wave antinodes to the position of the vehicle in motion. Therefore, the moving vehicle can be fed well at any position on the line. As a theoretical result, we derive adjustable matching conditions in FERMAT. We verified that the experimental result well agrees with the theory.

We developed a 5.8 GHz power-variable phase-controlled magnetron (PVPCM) which controls the phase of magnetron output by a phase shifter and controls the power by the anode current of the magnetron. This method is different from the previous 2.45 GHz phase-controlled magnetron which utilizes an injection method and a phase locked loop by the anode current, since the frequency of 5.8 GHz magnetron hardly changes with the anode current. Our experiments show that the developed 5.8 GHz PVPCM had a variable output power with 1% power stability from 160 W to 329 W, the phase accuracy was nearly ±1°, and the response time was less than 100 µs. Stable output power, high phase-controlled accuracy, and fast response speed microwave sources based on the PVPCMs are suitable for phased array system for wireless power transfer.

This paper focuses on underwater wireless power transfer with electric coupling. First, the maximum available efficiency is derived by using the S-parameters of the parallel plate coupler. The frequency which represents the maximal value of the efficiency is revealed. Further, the elevation in the efficiency in association with a reduction of the electrode size is found. It is clarified that the elevation depends on the characteristic of the water dielectric loss. From these results, the optimal electrode size that obtains the maximal value of the efficiency is provided. Finally, we fabricate the couplers by utilizing the optimal frequency and the electrode size. The efficiency of 75.8% under water is achieved.

In this paper, we applied cavity resonator wireless power transfer (CR WPT) to an enclosed space with scatterers and revealed that high transfer efficiency at line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) position in the power transmitter can be achieved by this method. In addition, we propose a method for limiting the wireless power transfer space utilizing metal mesh and show its effectiveness by experiment. First, we confirm that the constructed experimental model is working as a cavity resonator by theoretical formula and electromagnetic field analysis. Next, we calculate the maximum power transfer efficiency using a model including a plurality of scatterers by installing a power receiver at LOS and NLOS positions in the power transmitter, and it was confirmed that transfer efficiency of 30% or more could be expected even at the NLOS position. Then, we measured the frequency characteristics of a model in which one surface of the outer wall was replaced with a metal mesh, and it was clarified that the characteristics hardly changed in the power transfer frequency band. Finally, we confirmed that simultaneous communication can be performed with driving of the battery-less sensor by CR WPT, and clarify effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper presents a capacitor-loaded 4x4 planar loop array for three-dimensional near-field beamforming of magnetic resonance wireless power transfer (WPT). This planar loop array provides three important functions: beamforming, selective power transfer, and the ability to work alignment free with the receiver. These functions are realized by adjusting the capacitance of each loop. The optimal capacitance of each loop that corresponds to the three functions can be found using a genetic algorithm (GA); the three functions were verified by comparing simulations and measurements at a frequency of 6.78MHz. Finally, the beamforming mechanism of a near-field loop array was investigated using the relationship between the current magnitude and the resonance frequency of each loop, resulting in the findings that the magnitude and the resonance frequency are correlated. This focused current of the specified loop creates a strong magnetic field in front of that loop, resulting in near-field beamforming.

Internal power losses in lumped-element impedance matching circuits are formulated by means of Q factors of the elements and port impedances to be matched. Assuming that Q factors are relatively high, the above mentioned loss is expressed by a simple formula containing only the tangents of the impedances. The formula is a powerful tool for such applications that put emphasis on power efficiency as wireless power transfer. As well as the formulation, we illustrate some design examples with the derived formula: design of the least lossy L-section circuit and two-stage low-pass ladder. The examples provide ready-to-use knowledge for low-loss matching design.

This paper describes a numerical assessment methodology of pacemaker EMI triggered by HF-band wireless power transfer system. By using three dimensional full-wave numerical simulation based on finite element method, interference voltage induced at the connector of the pacemaker inside the phantom that is used for in-vitro EMI assessment is obtained. Simulated example includes different exposure scenarios in order to estimate the maximum interference voltage.

This study proposes a novel resonator design that uses tightly coupled parallel coils to improve the quality factor (Q factor) in coupled magnetic resonance wireless power transfer. Depending on the characteristics of the tightly coupled parallel-connected coils, the proposed resonator can offer significantly reduced resistance with very little self-inductance loss. A double-layer spiral coil structure is used for resonator design and evaluating its characteristics. Measured results show that a resonator consisting of two identical, tightly coupled parallel double-layer spiral coils can match the Q factor of a conventional double-layer spiral coil with the same number of turns, even though its equivalent resistance is approximately 75% less. Moreover, the system power transfer performance of the resonator was measured under the impedance matching condition. To further reduce the resistance, we propose another resonator comprising of three parallel and tightly coupled double-layer spiral coils, and measure its equivalent resistance characteristics for different wire gap sizes.

A method for measuring the magnetic field strength for human exposure assessment closer than 20cm to wireless power transfer (WPT) systems for information household appliances is investigated based on numerical simulations and measurements at 100kHz and 6.78MHz. Four types of magnetic sources are considered: a simple 1-turn coil and three types of coils simulating actual WPT systems. A magnetic sensor whose cross sectional area is 100cm2 as prescribed in International Electrotechnical Commission 62233 is used. Simulation results show that the magnetic field strength detected by the magnetic sensor is affected by its placement angle. The maximum coefficient of variation (CV) is 27.2% when the magnetic source and the sensor are in contact. The reason for this deviation is attributable to the localization of the magnetic field distribution around the magnetic source. The coupling effect between the magnetic source and the sensor is negligible. Therefore, the sensor placement angle is an essential factor in magnetic field measurements. The CV due to the sensor placement angle is reduced from 21% to 4% if the area of the sensor coil is reduced from 100 to 0.75cm2 at 6.78MHz. However, the sensitivity of the sensor coil is decreased by 42.5dB. If measurement uncertainty that considers the deviation in the magnetic field strength due to the sensor placement angle is large, the measured magnetic field strength should be corrected by the uncertainty. If the magnetic field distribution around the magnetic source is known, conservative exposure assessments can be achieved by placing the magnetic sensor in locations at which the spatial averaged magnetic field strengths perpendicular to the magnetic sensor coils become maximum.

Magnetic resonant coupling between two coils allows effective wireless transfer of power over distances in the range of tens of centimeters to a few meters. The strong resonant magnetic field also extends to the immediate surroundings of the power transfer system. When a user or bystander is exposed to this magnetic field, electric fields are induced in the body. For the purposes of human and product safety, it is necessary to evaluate whether these fields satisfy the human exposure limits specified in international guidelines and standards. This work investigates the effectiveness of the quasistatic approximation for computational modeling human exposure to the magnetic fields of wireless power transfer systems. It is shown that, when valid, this approximation can greatly reduce the computational requirements of the assessment of human exposure. Using the quasistatic modeling approach, we present an example of the assessment of human exposure to the non-uniform magnetic field of a realistic WPT system for wireless charging of an electric vehicle battery, and propose a coupling factor for practical determination of compliance with the international exposure standards.

This work addresses two key topics in the field of energy harvesting and wireless power transfer. The first is the optimum signal design for improved RF-DC conversion efficiency in rectifier circuits by using time varying envelope signals. The second is the design of rectifiers that present reduced sensitivity to input power and output load variations by introducing resistance compression network (RCN) structures.