Efficient Wireless Power Transfer with Capacitively Segmented RF Coils

Abstract

Wireless power transfer systems have been widely applied in the field of portable and implantable devices, featuring contact-free and reliable energy supply. Novel implant systems, such as brain-computer interfaces, impose the challenges of strong miniaturization and operation under loosely coupled conditions. Therefore, maximizing power transfer efficiency while decreasing the size of transmitter and receiver structures becomes a central research question. This paper presents a unified design strategy of modeling, analyzing and optimizing planar spiral coils with integrated capacitive elements, so-called capacitively segmented coils, for operation in wireless power transfer interfaces. It mathematically analyzes and experimentally verifies that the combination of capacitive coil segmentation, increased operational frequencies and geometrical coil optimization can be used to establish wireless power transfer links with comparatively high efficiency, small size and limited detuning effects in lossy dielectric environments. The paper embraces the formulation and verification of a broadband analytical link model based on partial element equivalent circuits, which is subsequently used to determine dominant coupling and loss mechanisms and to optimize the coils' geometries for high efficiency. Moreover, an extended analysis shows how the capacitive coil segmentation can effectively suppress dielectric losses and non-uniform current distributions by canceling the inductive contribution of every coil segment at the frequency of operation. Utilizing these methods, an exemplary 40.68MHz wireless power link with a 30mm primary and a 10mm secondary coil is designed and evaluated: With a maximum efficiency of up to 31% in biological tissue at 20mm separation distance, it features efficiency levels which are up to ten times higher and a specific absorption rate which is up to five times lower compared to non-segmented systems. When operated at 150MHz in air, efficiency levels are up to 1.5 times higher than in state-of-the-art systems of the same size.