A Robust Parity-Time-Symmetric WPT System With Extended Constant-Power Range for Cordless Kitchen Appliances

Abstract

Cordless kitchen appliances powered by wireless power transfer (WPT) technology can operate without the clutter of cords, making them safer and easier to clean. In order to allow cordless kitchen appliances to be placed more freely, this article proposed a parity-time (PT) symmetric WPT system with stable output power in the whole coupling range. Here, a new implementation of a PT-symmetric circuit using a combination of self-oscillating methods and pulsewidth modulation (SO-PWM) is presented. The self-oscillating mode is activated in the strong coupling region, which guarantees a constant output power and constant transfer efficiency against the coupling coefficient variation. In the weak coupling region, the PWM mode with a fixed frequency and a variable duty cycle is adopted, and a control strategy based on primary-side-only parameters is presented to obtain stable power transmission. Besides, a corresponding coupling-region detection method based on the reflected resistance is proposed to ensure smooth switching between SO mode and PWM mode. The advantage is that the stable output power can be maintained in the whole coupling region without any extra dc–dc converter and dual-side communication requirements, while maintaining the same transfer efficiency as the standard PT-symmetric WPT system. A 500-W experimental prototype is built to verify the theoretical analysis. The results show that with a transfer efficiency of over 91.6%, the misalignment tolerance can be increased by 172%.