• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.542-545
• /
• 2016

This work proposes a capacitive coupling-based wireless battery charging circuit that is built with vehicle glasses for electric vehicles. A capacitive coupling wireless power transfer offers many advantages, such as low metal impact and low energy transfer efficiency changes in accordance with changes in position. However, a large coupling capacitor is needed for high power transfer. Therefore, a new capacitive coupling-based wireless power transfer LLC resonant converter built with the glasses of an electric vehicle is proposed. The proposed converter is composed of coupling capacitors with glasses of an electric vehicle and two transformers for impedance transformation. The proposed LLC converter can transfer large power and obtain high efficiency with zero voltage switching. The validity and features of the proposed circuit is verified by experimental results with a 1.2 kW prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.987-993
• /
• 2015

Wireless power transfer technologies typically include inductive coupling, magnetic resonance, and capacitive coupling methods. Among these methods, capacitive coupling wireless power transfer (CCWPT) has been studied to overcome the drawbacks of other approaches. CCWPT has many advantages such as having a simple structure, low standing power loss, reduced electromagnetic interference (EMI) and the ability to transfer power through metal barriers. In this paper, the CCWPT system with 6.78MHz class D inverter is proposed and analyzed. The proposed system consists of a 6.78MHz class D inverter with a LC low pass filter, capacitor between a transmitter and a receiver, and impedance transformers. The system is verified with a prototype for charging mobile devices.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.286-289
• /
• 2018

This paper tests the feasibility of using the transparent electrode as the electrode of the capacitor in order to use the vehicle glass of the electric vehicle for a capacitive coupling wireless transfer (CCWPT). Large coupling capacitance can be obtained due to large area and high permittivity using the glasses of an electric vehicle. However, if an electrode is formed on a metal such as copper, then a view cannot be guaranteed and a transparent electrode can pose a solution. Therefore, the coupling capacitor is implemented by forming a glass dielectric with an ITO transparent electrode on one side through a semiconductor deposition process. The loss of the coupling capacitor is investigated, and a 200 W CCWPT prototype is fabricated and tested for its characteristics and power transfer.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.1678-1688
• /
• 2016

This paper presents a capacitive power transfer (CPT) system using a Class-E resonant inverter. A Class-E resonant inverter is chosen because of its ability to perform DC-to-AC inversion efficiently while significantly reducing switching losses. The proposed CPT system consists of an efficient Class-E resonant inverter and capacitive coupling formed by two flat rectangular transmitter and receiver plates. To understand CPT behavior, we study the effects of various coupling distances on output power performance. The proposed design is verified through lab experiments with a nominal operating frequency of 1 MHz and 0.25 mm coupling gap. An efficiency of 96.3% is achieved. A simple frequency tracking unit is also proposed to tune the operating frequency in response to changes in the coupling gap. With this resonant frequency tracking unit, the efficiency of the proposed CPT system can be maintained within 96.3%-91% for the coupling gap range of 0.25-2 mm.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.637-644
• /
• 2019

Wireless power transfer (WPT) technology with various transfer mechanisms such as inductive coupling, magnetic resonance and capacitive coupling is being widely researched. Until now, power transfer efficiency (PTE) and power transfer capability (PTC) have been the primary concerns for designing and developing WPT systems. Therefore, a lot of studies have been documented to improve PTE and PTC. However, power consumption in the standby mode, also defined as the no-load mode, has been rarely studied. Recently, since the number of WPT products has been gradually increasing, it is necessary to develop techniques for reducing the standby power consumption of WPT systems. This paper investigates the standby power consumption of commercial WPT products. Moreover, a standby power reduction technique for WPT systems via magnetic resonance coupling (MRC) with a parallel resonance type resonator is proposed. To achieve a further standby power reduction, the voltage control of an AC/DC travel adapter is also adopted. The operational principles and characteristics are described and verified with simulation and experimental results. The proposed method greatly reduces the standby power consumption of a WPT system via MRC from 2.03 W to 0.19 W.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.1656-1663
• /
• 2016

A capacitive wireless power transfer (C-WPT) system uses an electric field to transmit power through a physical isolation barrier which forms a pair of ac link capacitors between the metal plates. However, the physical dimension and low dielectric constant of the interface medium severely limit the effective link capacitance to a level comparable to the main switch output capacitance of the transmitting circuit, which thus narrows the soft-switching range in the light load condition. Moreover, by fundamental limit analysis, it can be proved that such a low link capacitance increases operating frequency and capacitor voltage stress in the full load condition. In order to handle these problems, this paper investigates optimal design of double matching transformer networks for C-WPT. Using mathematical analysis with fundamental harmonic approximation, a design guideline is presented to avoid unnecessarily high frequency operation, to suppress the voltage stress on the link capacitors, and to achieve wide ZVS range even with low link capacitance. Simulation and hardware implementation are performed on a 5-W prototype system equipped with a 256-pF link capacitance and a 200-pF switch output capacitance. Results show that the proposed scheme ensures zero-voltage-switching from full load to 10% load, and the switching frequency and the link capacitor voltage stress are kept below 250 kHz and 452 V, respectively, in the full load condition.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.805-814
• /
• 2016

Electric-field coupled power transfer (ECPT) systems have been proposed as an alternative wireless power transfer (WPT) technology in recent years. With the use of capacitive plates as a coupling structure, ECPT systems have many advantages such as design flexibility, reduced volume of the coupling structure and metal penetration ability. In addition, wireless communications are effective solutions to improve the safety and controllability of ECPT systems. This paper proposes a power and signal shared channel for electric-field coupled power transfer systems. The shared channel includes two similar electrical circuits with a band pass filter and a signal detection resistor in each. This is designed based on the traditional current-fed push-pull topology. An analysis of the mutual interference between the power and signal transmission, the channel power and signal attenuations, and the dynamic characteristic of the signal channel are conducted to determine the values for the electrical components of the proposed shared channel. Experimental results show that the designed channel can transfer over 100W of output power and data with a data rate from 300bps to 120 kbps.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.63-70
• /
• 2023

In this work, a capacitive wireless power transfer (C-WPT) system is presented for wireless sensor system (WSS) applications in marine propulsion shafts. For a single Q factor on both sides of the coupling capacitor and reactive power removal from the circuit, a double-sided LCLC converter and transformers topology are designed to drive the rotary C-WPT system for WSS on the shaft. Parallel-connected parallel plate rotating capacitors with a capacitance of 170 pF are designed and implemented for the C-WPT system on a snow rotating shaft. In the experimental results, the C-WPT system achieved a transmission efficiency of 66.67% with 7.8 W output power at 3 mm distance and 1 MHz operating frequency. Therefore, it was proved that the fabricated C-WPT system can supply power to the WSS of the rotating shaft.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.143-148
• /
• 2014

Conventional wireless power transfer methods based on coupled magnetic fields need a complex winding structure on the surface of the energy transfer and shows poor efficiency near metal objects due to the eddy current effect. In this study, to mitigate these problems, we investigate an electric field-coupled power transmission system, which is less prone to metal object problems and EMI. Because of the fundamental physical limit in the size of link capacitances, a half-bridge converter with an impedance matching transformer is proposed and the design procedure is derived to provide a soft-switching scheme. Hardware implementation shows that the proposed scheme with a pair of 10cm by 10cm copper plate can power a 1.4W USB FAN in a separation of 0.2mm by using insulating paper when driven by 227 kHz gate pulse.

• Journal of IKEEE
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.195-201
• /
• 2017

High-power wireless transmission system becomes a key technology for the advance of battery-powered devices. The wireless power transfer devices are currently dominated by the inductive and capacitive wireless power transfer systems, which have relatively low power transmission capacity and low efficiency rather than the wired power transmission. The work presented in this paper proposes an alternative method of high-power transmission system, based on a variable speed motor system with a magnetic coupling. It enables high-capacity power transmission, high efficiency, and low possibility of failures, and the performance of the proposed scheme is verified by simulation and experiments.