An Integrated Printed-Circuit-Board Resonator Design for Inductive Power Transfer System

In this paper, we present a printed-circuit-board (PCB) resonator, taking advantage of both winding inductance and intra-winding capacitance of the coil to form a LC resonant circuit. The characteristics of PCB resonator are described. The value of winding inductance and capacitance is obtained, with the aid of an equivalent circuit. The relation between quality factor of the coil and the ratio of inner/outer radius (i.e. Rin/Rout) is investigated to optimize the resonator design. The new structure has great potential to be employed into many inductive power transfer (IPT) systems. Several planar PCB resonators of resonant frequency around 1 MHz have been successfully built and tested. Performance of the resonators consistently agree with theoretical prediction.