Wireless/Contactless Power Supply

For more than a century it has been known thatsignals and power can be transferredelectromagnetically. This knowledge has motivatedsubstantial research and development into wirelesssignal transmission which today is widely used. Powertransfer across air gaps however has tended to berestricted to electric machines that have tightmagnetic couplings. It is only very recently that anovel technology termed IPT (Inductive PowerTransfer) has made wireless/contactless power deliveryto movable objects a practical reality.This research work presents the basic concept ofcontactless/wireless power transfer and typical IPTsystems that employ modern power conversion controland magnetic coupling techniques to achieve clean andreliable power transfer without direct electricalcontacts. Both current-fed parallel and voltage-fedseries resonant converters are fully investigatedusing mathematical analysis computer simulationsand practical experiments to evaluate theirproperties and usability in practical systems. Twonew resonant converters are proposed which showexcellent dynamic soft switching performance suitablefor wireless/contactless power transfer applications.