New power transfer technology provides unprecedented freedom for
wireless charging
Devices can be charged regardless of their position or orientation and
even on the go

Date:
February 1, 2022
Source:
Aalto University
Summary:
So far, safely charging devices anywhere in a large area has been
a challenge, but researchers have developed a transfer technology
that can direct power to individual devices without needing to
know their location. The technology has already been tested with
commercial robots, and it can also be used to charge phones,
laptops, or household appliances. No plugs, no tracking, and no
complex computing -- just clever use of electromagnetics. Devices
can be charged while they are moving, so with a bit more development
this technology could even charge electric cars on the road.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A new power transfer technology makes it possible to conveniently charge devices without using any wires or plugs. Warehouse robots, kitchen
appliances, and even phones or laptops can receive power anywhere over
the charging area, and because the power transfer continues even while
the device is in motion, this technology could one day power electric
vehicles while they're on the go.


==========================================================================
The basics of wireless power transfer have been in place for some time,
but existing systems are not able to charge devices placed anywhere within
a large area. Using a single large transmitter to cover the entire area
leads to unwanted electromagnetic exposure and means that the power flow
to individual devices cannot be controlled. If many small transmitters
are used, the receiving devices must be in a known position, and the transmitter and receiver have to be precisely aligned. This means the
system either has to use fixed charging locations or incorporate position sensors, communication protocols, and processing to track the location
of each receiver.

Researchers at Aalto University have tackled these problems, developing
a power transfer technology that works regardless of the position and orientation of the transmitter and receiver. The key idea is to arrange
the transmitters in a grid with the current in neighbouring transmitters running in opposite directions -- for example, a clockwise loop in one transmitter and counter- clockwise loops in its neighbours.

This creates a chessboard-like grid of 'positive' and 'negative'
transmitting coils with a magnetic flux between them. A receiver above
the grid of transmitters captures the magnetic flux between positive
and negative transmitters, which generates an electric current to charge
the device.

'The beauty of our method is that it's very simple yet quite
sophisticated,' says Prasad Jayathurathnage, the postdoctoral researcher
who led the project.

'We don't need a high-end processor or lots of computations to make
the transmitters intelligent. At the end of the day, it's all an electromagnetic system, and our approach was to figure out how we
could detect the receiver's presence and position electromagnetically.'
Because the presence of a receiver triggers the power transfer, the system
can work without any positional tracking and communication between the receivers and transmitters. This also means that power is only transferred
to the receiver, rather than the entire area being energised, and it
makes it possible for several devices to be charged simultaneously.

Tiling transmitters together produces a charging area of the desired
size and shape. A subset of the transmitters is then activated at lower
power. 'That's basically a search -- the transmitters are listening
for a receiver,' explains Shamsul Al Mahmud, a doctoral student in
the project. If power transfer to a receiver begins, the neighbouring transmitters switch from being off into an alert mode, primed to transfer
power if the receiver appears over them.

'With this configuration, we had almost constant efficiency and constant
power received regardless of the receiver's position and orientation,'
says Ishtiaque Panhwar, a researcher involved in the project, and the
power transfer continued smoothly even as the receiving device moved
around.

The technology has been tested with commercial warehouse robots in
cooperation with Finnish firm Solteq Robotics, and Jayathurathnage also
leads the project Parkzia, a project funded by Business Finland. The
project aims to commercialize this new technology for industry and
transport. 'Taking this technology out of the lab and seeing it
work in the warehouse was an exciting moment for me personally,'
says Jayathurathnage. 'I was finally bringing the product of ten
years of research out of the lab.' More familiar applications can
also improve our daily life. 'Take kitchen appliances, for example,'
says Jayathurathnage. 'At the moment, you need to put a rice cooker
or a blender at a particular spot for it to get energy. But with our
technology we can make the whole kitchen counter a source of power
for appliances or even phones, but the electromagnetic field is only
generated under the devices.' Although the technology is essentially
ready for real-world applications, it still needs commercial packaging
and certification. In the meantime, Jayathurathnage's team will continue
to refine and improve this technology. One of their goals is to boost
the power levels from about 1 kW to around 20 kW so that the technology
could be used to charge electric vehicles. 'There are pilot projects on electrifying roads across the world,' says Jayathurathnage.

'Electric vehicles are a really great application of this technology.' ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Aalto_University. Note: Content may
be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Shamsul Al Mahmud, Ishtiaque Ahmed Panhwar, Prasad Kumara Sampath
Jayathurathnage. Large-Area Free-Positioning Wireless Power Transfer
to Movable Receivers. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics,
2022; 1 DOI: 10.1109/TIE.2022.3144591 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220201115205.htm

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