A Magnetic Tank System for Wireless Power Transfer

This letter presents a tank system for wireless power transfer with magnetically coupled resonance. It contains two interconnected transmitting resonant coils placed perpendicular to each other and forms a magnetic resonant tank. Due to the combined effects of these two transmitting coils, there will always be magnetic flux that goes through the receiver regardless of axial misalignment between the transmitter and the receiver. The transfer efficiency thus improves and becomes less sensitive to axial misalignment than the conventional system. A prototype is fabricated on FR4 printed circuit boards and tested. Both the simulation and test results show that the proposed system can enhance power transfer performances over a relatively good distance and a large range of misalignment angles. The receiver is functional even when it is perpendicular to the transmitter. Therefore, the proposed system can serve as a good candidate for applications such as wireless power supply to underwater motors.