Opportunities and Challenges for Near-Field Wireless Power Transfer: A Review

Abstract

Abstract:Traditional power supply cords have become less important because they prevent large-scale utilization and mobility. In addition, the use of batteries as a substitute for power cords is not an optimal solution because batteries have a short lifetime, thereby increasing the cost, weight, and ecological footprint of the hardware implementation. Their recharging or replacement is impractical and incurs operational costs. Recent progress has allowed electromagnetic wave energy to be transferred from power sources (i.e., transmitters) to destinations (i.e., receivers) wirelessly, the so-called wireless power transfer (WPT) technique. New developments in WPT technique motivate new avenues of research in different applications. Recently, WPT has been used in mobile phones, electric vehicles, medical implants, wireless sensor network, unmanned aerial vehicles, and so on. This review highlights up-to-date studies that are specific to near-field WPT, which include the classification, comparison, and potential applications of these techniques in the real world. In addition, limitations and challenges of these techniques are highlighted at the end of the article.

Wireless Power Transfer Technology Applied to an Autonomous Electric UAV with a Small Secondary Coil

“…There are mainly two ways to realize a charging station: the first one is based on electrical contacts between the base station and the drone [6]. The second solution is based on the wireless power transfer (WPT) technology [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The contact-based solution allows high power transfer efficiency but the presence of contacts exposed to atmospheric agents will reduce the efficiency and reliability of the system.…”

Optimal Analytical Solution for a Capacitive Wireless Power Transfer System with One Transmitter and Two Receivers

“…Applications are the charging of, for example, electric vehicles [8], automatic guided vehicles [9], biomedical implants [10], integrated circuits [11] and low-power consumer applications [12]. Compared to IWPT, it has several advantages, such as a reduced cost and weight and the ability to transfer energy through metal [13,14]. Just as for IWPT, CWPT allows for the charging of multiple receivers at once with one transmitter.…”

Class E Power Amplifier Design and Optimization for the Capacitive Coupled Wireless Power Transfer System in Biomedical Implants

“…WPT technology has been widely studied in different applications like electric vehicle charging, consumer electronics charging, radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices, bio implantable devices, and many more [1,2]. WPT techniques are broadly classified into near field and far field power transfer methods.…”