Conformal Transformation Analysis of Capacitive Wireless Charging

Abstract

This paper studies the capacitive coupling in a capacitive power transfer (CPT) system designed for charging applications. It proposes mathematical models using the conformal transformation for calculating air-gapped and underwater capacitance and verifies the proposed models using COMSOL multiphysics and measurements. The measurement results show that we can achieve nano-farad capacitance ranges if we submerge the capacitor in seawater. The seawater’s capacitance slightly changes when we increase the gap distance or the operating frequency. As the under seawater CPT system can be an attractive option for loosely-coupled charging applications, we further examine the system by focusing on the cross-coupling effects. The results show that the cross-coupling between the plate degrades the system’s power transfer capability and efficiency. With negligible cross-coupling effects, the system gives 129 W output power at an efficiency of 81.2%.