Design of an electrically small circularly polarised turnstile antenna and its application to near-field wireless power transfer

Abstract

An electrically small circularly polarised antenna is designed and applied to near-field wireless power transfer as a means of alleviating orientation dependence. The antenna is miniaturised from a λ/2-turnstile antenna by utilising the top loading and multiple folding techniques. A local numerical search is used to determine the optimal antenna dimensions to achieve good axial ratio and impedance matching. The resulting design has a kr of 0.67 and shows good circular polarisation characteristic with a 3% axial ratio bandwidth. The designed antenna is fabricated and its circular polarisation performance is verified in the far field. The power transfer efficiency is then examined in the near field via simulation and measurement. It is shown that the designed circularly polarised antenna is effective in mitigating orientation dependence down to a distance of 0.2λ. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014.