Recent Advances in Wireless Charging

The field of wireless power transfer (WPT) has been developing significantly. Wireless Power Transfer completely eliminates the existing high voltage power transmission lines, cables, and towers.Electric Vehicles (EV) have been proposed to achieve green transportation. Even though EV usage is currently increasing, a technology breakthrough would be required to overcome battery related drawbacks.Wireless power transfer provides inherent electrical isolation and reduces on board charging cost, weight and volume. Nevertheless, WPT for EVs pose additional challenges and sustainability trade-offs and concerns that have stimulated discussion in academia and industry.In this presentation, we first review existing technologies for both stationary and dynamic charging of vehicles. We then propose a wireless power transfer technology using microwaves for the wireless charging of stationary EVs. It involves the design of a beam forming phased array antenna as a transmitter (TX) distributed on the parking walls or on garage walls that transmit power to the receiver antenna existing in the car.We use a phased array antenna technology to control and adjust the microwave power beam in order to increase efficiency and to reduce unexpected radiation outside of the receiving antenna. The harvested RF power is converted into DC supply to charge the battery while the EV parks over night by using an appropriate rectifier- antenna (rectenna) circuit. The technology lends itself also for charging implantable or wearable medical devices as well. This will be highlighted in the presentation with an example of a self-powered wearable medical device.