Maximum Wireless Power Transmission Using Real-Time Single Iteration Adaptive Impedance Matching

Abstract

Wireless power transfer (WPT) systems’ efficiency is significantly impacted by non-monotonic variations in the coupling coefficient. For very short distances or strong-coupling cases, the WPT efficiency is minimal at the natural resonant frequency, with two peaks around this frequency, known as the frequency splitting phenomenon. On the other hand, WPT capability decreases for long distances or weak coupling cases. Therefore, adaptive matching is required for WPT systems with varying distances, like wireless charging systems for electric vehicles (EVs). This paper first presents a detailed analysis of the frequency splitting phenomenon by studying the root locations of the WPT system’s transfer function. Then, a real-time fixed-frequency adaptive impedance matching (IM) method is proposed, in which the amplitude and phase of the input impedance is estimated using the average active power, the average reactive power, and the amplitude of input voltage. Unlike traditional search-and-find techniques, the proposed method calculates the optimal IM network parameters only in a single iteration, which improves the convergent speed. A scaled-down 20-Watt prototype controlled by the TMSF2812 is fabricated and used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method over a wide range of coil-to-coil distances.