Feasibility of Active Reactance Compensator for Autonomously Maximizing Repeater Coil Current of Wireless Power Transfer System Against Variations in Resonant Frequency and Magnetic Coupling Intensity

In resonant inductive coupling wireless power transfer systems, a repeater resonator is crucial in expanding the charging area, enabling efficient power supply to receivers, such as small Internet of Things (IoT) devices sparsely distributed in a wide area. However, the repeater current is highly susceptible to deviations in resonance frequency due to manufacturing tolerance and aging, as well as to the magnetic coupling between the transmitter and repeater coils, potentially leading to insufficient amplitude. Consequently, the magnetic field generated by the repeater decreases and the receiver may be difficult to obtain sufficient power from the transmitter via the repeater. To address this problem, this paper proposes a wireless power transfer system with active reactance compensators incorporated in the repeater and the transmitter. The proposed system can equivalently adjust the resonant frequencies of the transmitter and repeater to stably maximize the repeater coil current regardless of the variations in the resonant frequency and the magnetic coupling intensity. Experiments successfully verify that the proposed system can provide a more stable and larger repeater current and output power than the conventional system against the variations in the magnetic field intensity and the resonant frequency of the repeater, validating the feasibility of the proposed system for practical utilization of the repeater in expanding the charging area.