A Versatile Unified Model for Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) Systems

Efficient and cost-effective inductive power transfer (IPT) systems essentially require reactive power compensation networks. To select and design compensation networks best suited to meet the specific requirements of any particular application, the modeling and investigation of each type of compensation are required. Traditional approaches using separate models for each compensation type are repetitive and inefficient. Therefore, this article proposes a novel unified model for IPT systems that can be easily adapted to investigate the suitability of any type of compensation network. It is applicable to the design of uni-, or bidirectional IPT systems. Its utility is apparent from the ease with which it can be used to evaluate key performance indicators of IPT systems that are affected by compensation network design. The proposed unified model is benchmarked against experimental results from already published work, highlighting its benefits and verifying its accuracy.