IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO.
11, NOVEMBER 2014
Analysis and Design of a Wireless Power Transfer
System With an Intermediate Coil for High Efficiency
SangCheol Moon, Student Member, IEEE, Bong-Chul Kim, Student Member, IEEE,
Shin-Young Cho, Student Member, IEEE, Chi-Hyung Ahn, and Gun-Woo Moon, Member, IEEE
AbstractThis paper presents a theoretical analysis, an optimal
design method, and experimental results for a wireless power
transfer (WPT) system with an intermediate coil. The analytical
expression of the dc voltage transfer function is presented and
discussed. In a two-coil WPT system, which has low coupling coef-
ficient, the intermediate coil boosts the apparent self-inductance
and magnetizing inductance of the primary side at around the
resonance frequency of the intermediate coil, so that the appar-
ent coupling coefficient is compensated. The coupling coefficient
makes the system efficiency increase and induces bifurcation
phenomenon. From the analysis, this paper proposes an optimal
design method using the second resonance frequency operation
with the bifurcation phenomenon and presents design procedure
for high efficiency. A prototype of the WPT system with the inter-
mediate coil is implemented and experimented to verify the valid-
ity of the analysis and the proposed design method. The prototype
operates at 100 kHz switching frequency and has an air gap
between primary and secondary side of 200 mm. An overall system
efficiency of 95.57% has been achieved at 6.6 kW of output power.
Index TermsThree-coil resonator, wireless power transfer
(WPT) systems.
I. I NTRODUCTION
W IRELESS POWER TRANSFER (WPT) technology has
been studied and developed for the last few years,
because WPT systems have high reliability, safety, and conve-
nience. In applications such as biomedical implants [1], mobile
phones [2], electric vehicles (EV) [3], [4], LED TVs, and light-
ings [5], WPT is considered as a common interest. Recently,
commercial products of mobile phone battery chargers have
been successfully launched in the industry.
WPT technology can be classified into RF, inductive cou-
pling, capacitive coupling, and magnetic resonance methods.
Because of their high efficiency and simplicity, the induc-
tively coupled WPT and magnetic resonance WPT are the
most widely used. In 2007, a theoretical overview of magnetic
resonance was presented with a nonradiative scheme based on
magnetic resonance coupling [6], [7]. The magnetic resonance
Manuscript received May 10, 2013; revised August 17, 2013; accepted
December 9, 2013. Date of publication January 21, 2014; date of current
version June 6, 2014.
S. Moon, S.-Y. Cho, and G.-W. Moon are with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon
305-701, Korea (e-mail: caprio@angel.kaist.ac.kr; martin@angel.kaist.ac.kr;
gwmoon@ee.kaist.ac.kr).
B.-C. Kim and C.-H. Ahn are with the Samsung Electronics Co., Suwon,
443-742, Korea (e-mail: eebckim@kaist.ac.kr; chih.ahn@samsung.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2014.2301762
0278-0046 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
5861
method has an operating frequency of several MHz and can
transfer energy across a midrange distance (up to several me-
ters). However, in terms of operating frequency, human safety
should be considered since the transmission power is much
larger than that used in wireless communications. In particular,
the human exposure limits have to comply with international
safety guidelines (ICNIRP 1998 [8], IEEE C95.1-2005 [9]).
In addition, this method shows relatively low efficiency when
compared with that of the inductively coupled method.
On the other hand, the inductively coupled WPT method is a
well-known method which has been used in transformers with
an air gap. This method operates at below MHz frequency (ap-
proximately several tens of kHz hundreds of kHz). It shows
higher efficiency with a several mm air gap when compared
with the magnetic resonance method. However, the efficiency
rapidly decreases with a misalignment or an increase in the
distance of the air gap between the primary and secondary side
coil. This is due to a large circulating current which is induced
by an imaginary part of the input impedance. Under these
conditions, the mutual coupling of the coils is generally weak so
that the leakage inductance is much larger than the magnetizing
inductance. To reduce the circulating current, the imaginary
part of the input impedance should be designed to be as small as
possible. To solve this problem, four compensation topologies
using LC resonance have been introduced and analyzed [3],
[10][12].
In addition, to increase the power transfer distance, the
intermediate resonators which receive the magnetic field from
the primary coil then transmit the field to the secondary coil.
In [13], the power efficiency of WPT with an intermediate
resonant coil is analyzed, [14] investigates a relay effect in
the magnetic resonance, [15] presents a design procedure to
maximize efficiency in the two-, three-, four-coil inductive links
based on the reflected load theory, and [16] provides guide-
lines for magnetic field repeaters to maximize their benefits.
However, circuit modeling and analysis of WPT systems with
intermediate coils which provide optimal design guidelines of
the resonators are still lacking.
In this paper, the analytical expression of the dc voltage
transfer function of the three-coil resonator system is presented
and discussed. In Section II, the series-series compensated
two-coil resonator system which shows higher efficiency when
compared with the other topologies is analyzed, and then
the analysis is expanded to three-coil resonator systems. In
Section III, an optimal design method for high efficiency with
the intermediate coil is proposed. Finally, experimental results
obtained with a 6.6 kW prototype are presented to verify the
5862 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014

Fig. 2. Two-coil WPT system with full-bridge inverter.

Fig. 1. Two models of the inductively coupled resonator. (a) Coupling induc-
tor model. (b) Transformer model.

validity of the analysis and the proposed design method with an

air gap of 200 mm.
Fig. 3. AC equivalent circuit.
II. A NALYSIS OF S ERIES -S ERIES C OMPENSATED
R ESONATOR S YSTEMS where k is the coupling coefficient between the primary and
An inductively coupled resonator is usually illustrated as a secondary side.
coupling inductor model in Fig. 1(a). Although it is useful to
analyze the input and output impedances as well as the transfer A. Two-Coil Resonator System
efficiency, the transformer model as shown in Fig. 1(b) can
be more efficient for explaining the input to output transfer Fig. 2 shows a two-coil WPT system using the transformer
function. The voltages and currents of the input and output model with a full-bridge inverter. It consists of a square wave
ports of the coupling inductor model and transformer model are generator, a resonator, and an output rectifier, where VRI and
expressed as follows: VRO are the resonator input and output voltages, respectively.
 By using the fundamental approximation and the ac equivalent
V1 = jL1 I1 + jM I2 load resistance Rac , the ac equivalent circuit of the system is
(1)
V2 = jM I1 + jL2 I2 obtained as shown in Fig. 3. From the ac equivalent circuit,
 N2
V1 = j(Llkp + Lm )I1 + jLm N I2 the input to output voltage transfer function is obtained by (4)
 1  (2) F F
N2 N22 (see equation at the bottom of the page) where VRI and VRO
V2 = jLm N1 I1 + j Lm N 2 + Llks I2
1 are the fundamental components of the resonator input and
output voltages, C1 and C2 are the primary and secondary side
where L1 and L2 are the self-inductances, Llkp and Llks are the
resonance capacitances, and n is turns ratio. To maximize the
leakage inductances, N1 and N2 are the number of turns of the
transfer efficiency of the resonator, the imaginary part of the
primary and secondary side, M is the mutual inductance, and
input impedance should be eliminated. To achieve this, many
Lm is the magnetizing inductance, respectively. From (1) and
studies have suggested that the resonance frequency of C1 and
(2), the relations between the two models are obtained by
L1 should be equal to the secondary resonance frequency as
N2  follows:
M = Lm = k L1 L2
N1
L1 = Llkp + Lm 1 1
0 = = (5)
N2 L1 C 1 L2 C 2
L2 = Lm 22 + Llks
N1
Llkp = (1 k)L1 where L1 is equal to Llkp + Lm as given by (3). This means
Llks = (1 k)L2 (3) that n2 Llks and C2 /n2 can be substituted for Llkp and C1 ,

F
nVRO n Vo
Tv = F
=
VRI Vin
 
Rac s3 C1 C22 Lm 
= n 
Rac sC22 (1+s2 C1 (Lm+Llkp ))+s4 C1 C22 (n2 Llks Lm+n2 Llks Llkp+Llkp Lm )+s2 C1 (Lm+Llkp )+s2 C22 (n2 Llks+Lm )+1
n n n
(4)
MOON et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF A WPT SYSTEM 5863

Fig. 4. Norton equivalent circuit of the system.

Fig. 7. Equivalent circuit at the third resonance frequency.

The other resonance occurs when C1 resonates with Llkp and

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit at the first resonance frequency.
Fig. 6. Equivalent circuit at the second resonance frequency.
respectively. Therefore, (4) can be simplified by (6) (see equa-
tion at the bottom of the page). The denominator of (6) shows
that the two-coil resonator system has three resonance fre-
quencies. To analyze these resonance frequencies, the Norton
equivalent circuit of the resonance system is illustrated in Fig. 4.
When all of the inductances and capacitances resonate to-
gether, as shown in Fig. 5, the first resonance occurs at the pole
frequency 1 of Z2 . The values of Z2 and 1 are obtained by
 
sLlkp + sC1 1 s2 C1 Lm
Z2 = (7)
1 + s2 C1 (2Lm + Llkp )
1 quality factor of the primary side is much lower than that of the
1 =  . (8)
C1 (2Lm + Llkp )
At this frequency, Z2 becomes infinite so that the input voltage
Vin equals the reflected output voltage nVo . Therefore, the volt-
age transfer function always becomes unity regardless of load
variations. Since the reflected output voltage follows the input
voltage, the system shows the voltage follower characteristic.
The second resonance occurs when Llkp resonates with C1 .
At this frequency 2 , Z3 becomes short circuited as shown in
Fig. 6. Thus, the voltage transfer function is also unity, which
is similar to that of the first resonance case. Z3 and 2 are as
follows:
1 1 + s2 C1 Llkp
Z3 = (9)
2 sC1
1 wide operating frequency range, three and four coil resonator
2 =  . (10)
C1 Llkp
Lm . The equivalent circuit is illustrated in Fig. 7. This reso-
nance frequency 3 which is equal to (5) is widely used as the
operating frequency of the full-bridge inverter, because of both
the maximum power transfer and high transfer efficiency. At
this frequency, Llkp and C1 act like a voltage divider. Thus, the
voltage gain of the system is varied with Rac . In addition, the
system has a current follower characteristic at 3 , because
the load current becomes constant by Vin /Z1 regardless of load
variations. Z4 , 3 , and the voltage gain can be expressed as
 
sLlkp + sC1 1 sLm
Z4 = (11)
1 + s2 C1 (Lm + Llkp )
1
3 =  (12)
C1 (Lm + Llkp )
    
nVo   Rac 3 C1   Rac 3 C1 
=  = . (13)
Vin =3 1 32 C1 Llkp   k 
Since the input impedance has a zero phase angle (ZPA) and
no imaginary part at 3 , the resonator shows maximum transfer
efficiency. However, as Rac decreases or k increases, a pole-
splitting phenomenon occurs. As a result, the input impedance
has three ZPA frequencies instead of just one. It is often called
a bifurcation phenomenon [17]. The article shows that if the
secondary side, the phenomenon occurs.
Finally, 1 , 2 , and 3 are depicted for an ideal case with
load variations in Fig. 8. This shows that the voltage gain is
unity at 1 and 2 , and that it decreases as the load resistance
decreases at 3 which is presented in the circuit analysis. When
Rac equals 5 ohm, because of a low load resistance, the pole-
splitting occurs. As a result, the voltage gain becomes a double
peak curve and the input impedance has another two ZPA
frequencies around 1 and 2 .
B. Expansion to Three-Coil Resonator Systems
Since the intermediate coil provides the benefits of increasing
the apparent coupling coefficient, the transfer distance, and the
systems have been studied. The three-coil resonator system in
[16] suggests the optimum position of the intermediate coil for

 
n Vo Rac s3 C1 C22 Lm 
Tv = = n  (6)
Vin Rac sC2
(1 + s2 C1 (Lm + Llkp )) + (1 + s2 C1 Llkp ))(1 + s2 C1 (2Lm + Llkp ))
n2
5864 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014
Fig. 8. Voltage gain graph of two-coil system for ideal case, when n = 1,
Llkp = 50 H, Lm = 10 H, C1 = C2 = 50 nF, and k = 0.1667.
Fig. 9. Three-coil resonator with the intermediate coil.
maximum power transfer, maximum efficiency, and a wide ZPA
frequency range. For high efficiency, the study suggests that the
optimum position of the intermediate coil is one that is close to
the primary coil.
When the intermediate coil is coupled with the primary coil,
as shown in Fig. 9, the physical parameters (self-inductance,
coupling coefficient) between the primary and secondary coils
are the same with the two-coil system. However, it boosts the
apparent self and magnetizing inductance of the primary side
at around the resonance frequency of the intermediate coil.
This results in increasing the effective inductance ZL1 and the
apparent coupling coefficient. As a result, the transfer efficiency
of the resonator increases. The resonance frequency t of the
intermediate coil is given by
1
t = 
(14) increase to 0.408 at fs = 100 kHz, and ZL1 increases to
Lm
C3 Llkt + m2
where Llkt is the leakage inductance of the intermediate coil,
m is turns ratio between the primary and intermediate coils,
and C3 is resonance capacitance of the intermediate coil.
Fig. 10 shows an equivalent circuit of ZL1 of the primary
side. Since the reflected impedance from the intermediate coil
affects the primary side, ZL1 is obtained by
ZL1
 
s3 L (m2 L +L )+m2 L L
C3 +s(L +L ) 
Fig. 10. The equivalent circuit of the effective inductance.
Fig. 11. Simulation and measurement results of the effective inductance when
Llkp = 137.22 H, Lm = 49.32 H, Llkt = 37.49 H, C3 = 41.21 nF,
m = 1.9131.
At the pole frequency of ZL1 , which is equal to the resonance
frequency of the intermediate coil of (14), ZL1 becomes in-
finite. Fig. 11 shows the simulation and measurement results
of ZL1 with the practical resonator parameters that are used
in the experiment in Section IV. According to the operating
frequency, the measurement follows simulation results well.
This graph also shows that ZL1 increases at around the res-
onance frequency of the intermediate coil as presented in
the mathematical analysis. If the operating frequency is set
within recommended operating region, in which the slope of
ZL1 increases slowly, the apparent coupling coefficient can be
properly increased. For example, when the coupling coefficient
is 0.191 in the two-coil resonator with fs = 100 kHz, L1 =
186.55 H, Llkp = 150.96 H, Lm = 35.59 H, and Llks =
106.54 H. However, when the two-coil resonator is converted
to a three-coil resonator with an intermediate coil (Llkt =
37.49 H, C3 = 41.21 nF), the apparent coupling coefficient
270.61 H, as shown in Fig. 11.
The three-coil WPT system with the intermediate coil is
illustrated in Fig. 12. The intermediate coil is coupled with the
primary and secondary coils. In the ac equivalent circuit, as
shown in Fig. 13, the reflected impedance of the intermediate
coil is added to the two-coil system. Therefore, in the voltage
transfer function Tv2 of the three-coil system, the intermediate
coil effect is added to the voltage transfer function of the two-
coil system as follows:
Intermediate coil eect
 lkp lkt m m lkt m2 m lkp   

= . 
 
 s2 (m2 Llkt + Lm ) m
C3
2 + 1
 F
nVRI n Vo Z
= Tv   (16)
6
Tv2 = =  Z6 +Z1 Lm (Z5 +Rac ) 
F 
(15) Vd V in
MOON et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF A WPT SYSTEM
Fig. 12. Three-coil WPT system with the intermediate coil.
Fig. 13. AC equivalent circuit with the intermediate coil.
Fig. 14. Voltage gain and the phase of Zin of the three-coil systems,
when Llkp = 137.22 H, Lm = 49.32 H, Llks = 96.85 H, Llkt =
37.49 H, C1 = 19.43 nF, C2 = 25.082 nF, C3 = 41.21 nF, n = 1.1903,
m = 1.9131, and Ro = 24.24 .
where Tv is the voltage transfer function (6) of the two-
coil system. According to the denominator of the intermediate
coil effect, the voltage gain may increase or decrease when
compared with (6). The voltage gain and the phase of Zin of
the three-coil system are illustrated in Fig. 14 with practical
parameters.
In the three-coil system, the intermediate coil boosts the
apparent coupling coefficient. It increases the system efficiency
and induces the bifurcation phenomenon, as shown in Fig. 14.
In this system, the conventional design method with the oper-
ating frequency 3 shows several disadvantages. First, there is
5865
voltage gain error at 3 , because of the limitation of the funda-
mental approximation. Therefore, it is hard to predict the output
voltage. Second, resonance frequency mismatch between the
primary and secondary side occurs in practical applications due
to components tolerances. As a result, the system cannot oper-
ate at the ZPA frequency, as shown in Fig. 14. This reduces the
transfer efficiency. Finally, the operating point of the full-bridge
inverter can be changed from the ZVS region to the ZCS region
with load variations due to the bi-furcation phenomenon. This
may increase the stress of the inverter switches. To solve these
problems, this paper proposes an optimal design method using
the second resonance frequency operation with the bifurcation
phenomenon.
III. P ROPOSED D ESIGN M ETHOD
AND D ESIGN C ONSIDERATIONS
In the proposed design method, as shown in Fig. 15, the
operation frequency is designed at around the second resonance
frequency 2 which has a low fundamental approximation
error, while it is designed at around 3 in the conventional
method. Thus, it is easy to predict output voltage and design
overall system. In addition, the bifurcation phenomenon makes
3 ZPA frequencies so that the second resonance frequency
is located at around the other ZPA frequency. Therefore, the
proposed design method has the advantage of a predictable
output voltage with high transfer efficiency due to the quasi
ZPA frequency operation. However, since a design that includes
an intermediate coil is complicated, proper design guidelines
should be provided. In this section, the design procedure is
presented step by step.
A. Define the WPT System
As a first step, the WPT system specifications are defined as
follows:
1) power supply: three-phase ac source;
2) nominal Vin : 540 Vdc (output of PFC stage);
3) rated output: Po = 6.6 kW, Vo = 200 400 Vdc , Io =
16.5 A, Ro = 12.12 24.24 ;
4) estimated overall system efficiency: est = 90%;
5) switching devices of the full-bridge inverter: Si MOSFET;
6) operating frequency fs of the inverter: 100 kHz.
5866 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014

Fig. 16. Resonator design.

D. Design C1 and L1
The next step is the design of resonance capacitance C1 and
self-inductance L1 of the primary side, in Fig. 16. Using the
voltage gain (13) at 3 , C1 is determined by
M k
C1 = . (20)
Rac 3
Experimentally, M is recommended to be around 1.5 to achieve
Fig. 15. Proposed design method. high efficiency. L1 is given by (3) and (12). Thus, C1 and L1
which are measured with other coils open circuited are designed
to be 19.53 nF and 179.51 H, respectively.
B. Determine the third resonance frequency f3
Generally, WPT systems have a weak coupling coefficient E. Design C2 and L2
around 0.2 0.3 between the primary and secondary coils.
With this coupling coefficient, the third resonance frequency In the secondary resonator, the self-inductance L2 of the
f3 is far from f2 as follows: secondary coil is easily obtained by
L1
0.83fs |k=0.3 < f3 < 0.89fs |k=0.2 (17) L2 = (21)
n2
where L2 is measured with other coils open circuited. To
where the switching frequency fs is designed to the second res-
increase the transfer efficiency, the resonance capacitance C2
onance frequency f2 in the proposed design method. Typically,
can be calculated by using (5)
the third resonance frequency can be set at 10 20% below fs .
Therefore, f3 is designed as 85 kHz. 1
C2 = . (22)
L2 32

C. Determine the Turns Ratio and Rac
As described in Section II-A, the system shows the voltage
follower characteristic at f2 . Thus, while considering the sys-
tem efficiency est , the turns ratio is given by
n = est Vin /Vo |f =f2 (18)
Therefore, C2 and L2 are designed to be 28.59 nF and
122.61 H, respectively.
F. Design C3 and L3
In the intermediate coil, the self-inductance L3 can be de-
signed by a quality factor Q3 at operating frequency as follows:

where n is the effective turns ratio. When there is diame- Q3 re

L3 = (23)
ter difference between the primary and secondary coils, the s
real number of turns cannot represent the turns ratio. The ac where re is the ac resistance of the intermediate coil. To min-
equivalent load resistance under the full load condition can be imize the conduction loss of the intermediate coil, the quality
calculated by factor becomes about 500 600. In the design of C3 , the
resonance frequency of the intermediate coil can be determined
8n2
Rac = Ro . (19) by placing it about 10% above of the operating frequency as
2 follows:
Therefore, n and Rac are designed to be 1.21 and 28.76 , 1
C3 = . (24)
respectively. L3 (1.1s )2
MOON et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF A WPT SYSTEM
TABLE I
S PECIFICATIONS OF P ROTOTYPE
This induces boosting of the apparent L1 at fs by 20 40%.
Therefore, C3 and L3 are designed to be 39.86 nF and 52.52 H,
respectively.
G. Verify the Apparent L1 With the Intermediate Coil, and
Vo /Vin and the Phase of Zin of the Overall System
The next step is checking L1 at fs . In Fig. 11, L1 is
186.55 H without the intermediate coil. However, the apparent
L1 increases to 270.61 H with the intermediate coil at fs . If
the apparent L1 is boosted a little, C3 needs to be increased.
Since the resonance frequency of the intermediate coil goes
to fs , the apparent L1 is increased a lot. This also increases
apparent coupling coefficient. Finally, in Fig. 15, the voltage
gain Vo /Vin and the phase of Zin of the overall system are
simulated. This is to verify if the system can operate in the ZVS
region at fs with load variations.
From the design procedure, it is verified that none of coils
are tuned at an operating frequency of 100 kHz unlike the con-
ventional design method. The primary and secondary coils are
tuned at 85 kHz, and the intermediate coil is tuned at 110 kHz.
This is one of the main features of the proposed design method.
IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
A prototype of a WPT system with an intermediate coil
is implemented with the proposed design method, and the
specifications are shown in Table I. The prototype operates at
100 kHz switching frequency. IPW65R037C6 MOSFETs are
5867
used for the full-bridge inverter, and 6.6 kW of power is trans-
ferred to the output load. In the resonator, the real parameters
which are measured with other coils open circuited are similar
to the designed parameters in Section III. Fig. 17 shows a block
diagram of the prototype of a 6.6 kW WPT system which has
an air gap between the primary and secondary side coil of
200 mm. The intermediate coil is located inside of the primary
coil. From the three-phase ac source, the power is transferred
though the full-bridge inverter, the resonator, and the output
rectifier. The stand-by flyback converters supply the operating
current of the PFM controller, the gate drivers, and a fan for
cooling.
In terms of the voltage gain of the system, shown in Fig. 18,
the theoretical analysis in Section II is well matched with the
experimental results at around the operating frequency. There-
fore, the rated output voltage and current are easily achieved
with the proposed design method. However, as the operating
frequency goes to 3 , like the conventional design method, the
error is gradually increased as expected.
Fig. 19 shows the input and output voltages, currents, and
powers at the rated load. The input power is measured by a
PM3000A precise power analyzer. The prototype has an overall
system efficiency of 95.57% from the three-phase ac source to
the output load with the proposed design method. The power
consumptions of the gate drivers, the control ICs, and a fan
are also considered in the efficiency calculation. The current
waveforms of the primary, secondary, and intermediate coils
are shown in Fig. 20. Under this load condition, the total losses
are illustrated in Fig. 21. The conduction loss of the primary
coil shows the biggest loss. The secondary side rectifiers and
the MOSFETs switching including the gate driver, and the
secondary coil losses also make up a large portion of these
losses.
Fig. 22 shows the overall system efficiency with load vari-
ations for the three-coil system which is designed by the
proposed method with Si MOSFETs and SiC MOSFETs, and
the two-coil system with SiC MOSFETs. In the Si and SiC
MOSFET comparison, since the turn-on resistance of the Si
MOSFET is lower than that of the SiC MOSFET and the
switching frequency is only 100 kHz, the Si MOSFET shows
higher efficiency. The Si MOSFET and SiC MOSFET have
turn-on resistances of 37 m and 80 m, respectively. If
the switching frequency increases to above 200 kHz, the SiC
MOSFET may show higher efficiency. In the two-coil and
three-coil system comparison, the three-coil system shows
much higher efficiency due to a higher apparent coupling
coefficient. The coupling coefficient of the two-coil system is
0.191. However, in the three-coil system, the apparent coupling
coefficient becomes 0.408 as presented in Section II-B.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, the frequency characteristics of two-coil and
three-coil resonator WPT systems have been presented. In the
voltage transfer function of the three-coil resonator system,
the intermediate coil effect is added to the characteristic of
the original two-coil resonator system. The intermediate coil
boosts the effective self-inductance and magnetizing inductance
5868
Fig. 17. Block diagram of the 6.6 kW WPT system.
Fig. 18. Simulation and experimental results of the voltage gain.
Fig. 19. Input and output power of the overall WPT system.
Fig. 20. Current waveforms of the primary, secondary, and intermediate coil.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014
Fig. 21. Loss analysis at 6.6 kW output power.
Fig. 22. Overall system efficiency with load variation.
of the primary side at around the resonance frequency of the
intermediate coil, so that the apparent coupling coefficient
increases. As a result, the three-coil system has higher effi-
ciency with a relatively long distance between the primary and
secondary sides. Finally, this paper proposed an optimal design
method using the second resonance frequency operation with
MOON et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF A WPT SYSTEM
the bifurcation phenomenon. The proposed design method has
the advantage of a predictable output voltage with high transfer
efficiency. It makes the overall system design easy. To verify the
analysis and the proposed design method, a 6.6 kW prototype
was implemented and experimented on. The results showed that
the three-coil resonator WPT system with the proposed design
method has an overall efficiency of 95.57% with a 200 mm air
gap at 6.6 kW.
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SangCheol Moon (S10) was born in Jeju Island,
Korea, in 1979. He received the B.S. degree in
electrical engineering from Ajou University, Suwon,
Korea, in 2005, and the M.S. degree in electrical
engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea,
in 2007. Currently, he is working toward the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering at KAIST.
He has been a System and Application Engineer
at Fairchild Semiconductor, Bucheon, Korea, since
2007. His research interests include power electron-
ics including analysis, modeling, control method, power factor correction,
LEDs, and wireless power transfer circuits.
Bong-Chul Kim (S09) was born in Korea in 1979.
He received the B.S. degree from Chung-Ang Uni-
versity, Seoul, Korea, in 2006, and the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technol-
ogy (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2008 and 2012,
respectively.
Currently, he is a Senior Research Engineer in the
Device Innovation Division, Samsung Electronics
Co., Ltd., Suwon, Korea. His current research in-
terests include power converter, high-power-density
adapter, and wireless power transfer systems.
Dr. Kim was a recipient of the Second Prize Paper Award at the International
Telecommunications Energy Conference (INTELEC) in 2009.
Shin-Young Cho (S10) was born in Seoul, Korea,
in 1981. He received the B.S degree from Hanyang
University, Seoul, and the M.S degree from the
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
(KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2007 and 2010, respec-
tively, both in electrical engineering. Currently, he is
working toward the Ph.D. degree at KAIST.
His research interests include power electronics,
display driver systems, and wireless chargers includ-
ing the analysis, modeling, design, and control of
power converters.
5870 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014
Chi-Hyung Ahn received the B.S. degree from Inha
University, Incheon, Korea, the M.S. degree in elec-
tronics engineering from the Pohang University of
Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea, and the
Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University, Col-
lege Station, TX, USA, in 2002, 2004, and 2010,
respectively.
From 2004 to 2005, he was a Visiting Researcher
with the Microwave Electronics Laboratory, Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. From
2005 to 2006, he was with Agilent Korea. In 2010,
he joined Samsung Electronics, Suwon, Korea. His research interests include
wireless power transmission, metamaterial applications, conformal arrays, and
microwave filters.
Gun-Woo Moon (S92M00) received the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technol-
ogy (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 1992 and 1996,
respectively.
Currently, he is a Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering, KAIST. His research inter-
ests include modeling, design, and control of power
converters; soft-switching power converters; reso-
nant inverters; distributed power systems; power-
factor correction; electric drive systems; driver
circuits of plasma display panels; and flexible ac transmission systems.
Dr. Moon is a member of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics (KIPE),
the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers (KIEE), the Korea Institute of
Telematics and Electronics (KITE), the Korea Institute of Illumination Elec-
tronics and Industrial Equipment (KIIEIE), and the Society for Information
Display (SID).