Analysis of Wireless Power Transfer System Based on 3-D Finite-Element Method Including Displacement Current

Abstract

With the advent of electronic technology, researchers are devoting increasing interests to wireless power transfer methods. Generally finite-element method (FEM) is a powerful tool for numerical simulation of such systems. Due to the relatively high operating frequency, the presence of inductance and distributed capacitance in the system as well as eddy current and displacement current become two essential issues in the study of electromagnetic field distribution in wireless power transfer systems. One of the major problems to be addressed is the gap between low and high frequencies as conventional low frequency methods cannot include displacement current, while common high frequency methods focus mainly on the ultrahigh frequencies, such as in antenna studies. In this paper, a 3-D FEM including displacement current is developed to model wireless power transfer system to include displacement current and eddy current and close the gap of high and low frequency modeling methods. No frequency sweeping, which is required in conventional studies, is necessary in the proposed algorithm. Hence the computing time of the proposed algorithm requires only 1.5% of the normal time domain FEM method and this is a significant accomplishment for the electromagnetic community.