Comparative Study of Achievable Efficiency Between Three- and Four-Coil Wireless Power Transfer Systems

In magnetic resonant wireless power transfer (WPT), intermediate resonant coils (i-RCs) can be deployed between a transmitter and a receiver as a means of improving performance, but this entails a high additional cost. In the search for a cost-effective strategy for the use of additional components of WPT, we provide a comparative analysis of the achievable transmission efficiency (TE) between three-coil (3C) and four-coil (4C) systems. In particular, we find optimal control parameters, e.g., load resistance and inductive coupling coefficient, to derive the achievable TE for each system in closed-form expressions. In comparing the achievable TEs of the two systems, we also remark on the effective use of additional coils in two main ways. First, by optimizing the load resistance, the position of the i-RC is determined to be close to the transmitter or the receiver in a 3C system for improving the achievable TE depending on the strength difference between inductive and resonant couplings. Moreover, if the i-RC is placed near the transmitter, the 3C system shows the same achievable TE as the 4C system. Second, by optimizing the inductive coupling coefficient, the achievable TE of the 3C system is not affected by the location of the i-RC, whether it is placed nearer to the transmitter or the receiver, and the 4C system always outperforms the 3C system. Through a series of experiments conducted in a variety of environments, we verify both the validity of these observations and the accuracy of the theoretical analysis.