Waveform Optimization for Near-Field Wireless Powered Communication Using a Coil Array

Driven by the growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there is a pressing need for powering devices wirelessly while communicating with them. This paper considers wireless powered communication (WPC) using near-field inductive coupling, a technique to communicate with remote devices that do not have batteries or a power supply. While near-field WPC has long been used for passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems, the performances of communication and power transfer have not been fully analyzed. This paper models near-field WPC using a coil array based on an abstract circuit model in which the characteristics of mutual coupling and other linear effects are captured by a small number of parameters. We investigate how the choices of load impedances and source voltages affect the performance of power transfer and communication. The improvement in power and information transfer are verified by simulation.