Visualization of Energy Flow in Wireless Power Transfer Systems

A time-efficient computational framework to plot the time-varying and time-averaged space distribution of Poynting vectors in an inductive wireless power transfer system is presented in this paper. It can deal with any arbitrarily shaped winding. The time and space complexities are reduced compared to popular CEM methods. This framework uses 1-dimensional segmentation instead of 3-dimensional mesh gridding. The currents in the windings are solved analytically and the field strength values are directly calculated by numerical integrations. Several examples are included in this paper. It can be further integrated with design and optimization tools for wireless power transfer applications that would allow automated circuit design. It can also help industrial designers understand the energy flow in air intuitively.