Design of auto-tuning capacitive power transfer system for wireless power transfer

This paper presents the design of capacitive wireless power transfer systems based on a Class-E inverter approach. The main reason for adopting the Class-E inverter approach is because of its high efficiency, theoretically 100%. However, the operation of a Class-E inverter is highly sensitive to its circuit’s parameters. In a typical capacitive wireless power transfer application, the capacitive coupling distance between plates is subject to changes, and hence its power transfer efficiency is greatly affected if the Class-E inverter is properly tuned. This drawback motivates us to develop an auto frequency tuning algorithm for a Class-E inverter which maintains its power transfer efficiency in spite of the variations of capacitive coupling distances between plates and circuit’s parameters. Finally, simulation and experiment are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the auto frequency tuning algorithm.