An Adaptive Impedance-Matching Network Based on a Novel Capacitor Matrix for Wireless Power Transfer

In a wireless power transfer (WPT) system via the magnetic resonant coupling, one of the most challenging design issues is to maintain a reasonable level of power transfer efficiency (PTE), even when the distance between the transmitter and the receiver changes. When the distance varies, the PTE drastically decreases due to the impedance mismatch between the resonator of the transmitter and that of the receiver. This paper presents a novel serial/parallel capacitor matrix in the transmitter, where the impedance can be automatically reconfigured to track the optimum impedance-matching point in the case of varying distances. The dynamic WPT matching system is enabled by changing the combination of serial and parallel capacitors in the capacitor matrix. An interesting observation in the proposed capacitor matrix is that the resonant frequency is not shifted, even with capacitor-matrix tuning. In order to quickly find the best capacitor combination that achieves maximum power transfer, a window-prediction-based search algorithm is also presented in this paper. The proposed resonance WPT system is implemented using a resonant frequency of 13.56 MHz, and the experimental results with 1W power transfer show that the transfer efficiency increases up to 88% when the distance changes from 0 to 1.2 m.