Open AccessConvex optimization of coil spacing in cascaded multi-coil wireless power transfer
Author(s) -
Connor Badowich,
Jacques Rousseau,
Loïc Markley
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
wireless power transfer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.275
H-Index - 11
ISSN - 2052-8418
DOI - 10.1017/wpt.2020.5
Subject(s) - electromagnetic coil , wireless power transfer , relay , convergence (economics) , maximum power transfer theorem , power (physics) , regular polygon , mathematical optimization , function (biology) , convex function , convex optimization , computer science , control theory (sociology) , topology (electrical circuits) , mathematics , physics , electrical engineering , geometry , engineering , combinatorics , control (management) , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , artificial intelligence , biology , economic growth , economics
In this paper, we use convex optimization to maximize power efficiency through cascaded multi-coil wireless power transfer systems and investigate the resulting characteristic spacing. We show that although the efficiency is generally a non-convex function of the coil spacing, it can be approximated by a convex function when the effects of higher-order couplings are small. We present a method to optimize the spacing of cascaded coils for maximum efficiency by perturbing the solution of the convex approximation to account for higher-order interactions. The method relies on two consecutive applications of a local optimization algorithm in order to enable fast convergence to the global optimum. We present the optimal configurations of coil systems containing up to 20 identical coils that transfer power over distances up to 4.0 m. We show that when spacing alone is optimized, there exist an optimal number of coils that maximize transfer efficiency across a given distance. We also demonstrate the use of this method in optimizing the placement of a select number of high-Q coils within a system of low-Q relay coils, with the highest efficiencies occurring when the high-Q coils are placed on either side of the largest gaps within the relay coil chain.