Resonant Wireless Power Transfer:

Investigation of Radiating Resonances

(1) (2)
M. Dionigi , G. Franceschetti , Life Fellow, IEEE,
(1)
and M. Mongiardo , Fellow, IEEE,
Abstract— Resonant Wireless Power Transfer is an emerging
technique for exchanging energy in the near field. Common resonators We show that the selection of the appropriate resonant frequency is
take the form of splitted ring resonators, coils, spiral, or helical important in order to obtain full power transmission and to avoid
resonators. The radiating behaviors of coupled resonators are unwanted electromagnetic interference.
investigated in this paper and properties important for practical
applications are illustrated. We show that the selection of the appropriate
resonant frequency is important in order to obtain full power
transmission and to avoid unwanted electromagnetic interference.

Index Terms— Wireless Power Transfer, Resonators, Radiation

I. INTRODUCTION

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) can be realized either by using

radiated electromagnetic fields or by using the reactive part of the
fields. When considering radiated fields it is possible to reach quite
large distances, with the power that is spread over a solid angle. At
the opposite, inductive coupling can realize significant power
transfer, almost without radiation, but is limited to very close objects.
Recently, renewed interest has been devoted to WPT realized by
using resonant coils coupled via their magnetic fields [1-6]. By this
approach it is possible to achieve medium range (i.e. 0-5 times the
dimensions of the coils) WPT by using resonating reactive fields. The
principle used is that two resonant structures with the same resonant
frequency can exchange energy. Note that, in the ideal case of a
lossless transmitting resonator, only the receiving resonators can
dissipate energy. We concentrate to the radiation effects in the
resonant WPT systems made by self-resonating coils or helices. It is
well known that for two coupled resonators we have two different
resonant frequencies. However, little if any information is available
on the field radiating behavior at the two resonances.
Fig. 2: Equivalent network representation of two resonating coils coupled via
their magnetic fields.
II. COUPLED RESONATORS SYSTEMS
Let us consider two inductances, Lj and _L^, which are
mutually coupled: their mutual coupling hi can be expressed
in terms of the coupling coefficient k\2 as:
M = k,* L,L~,. (1)
The coupling coefficient k\2 is an adimensional quantity,
with values comprised between zero and one. By considering
the two-coupled inductances as a two-port network, it is
possible to provide their impedance representation, in the
frequency domain, as:

(2)
V = jcoMI + jti)L,I,
L 1 L L

with CO representing the angular frequency. In order to

achieve resonances, we need to add capacitances, either in
series or in parallel. If we add the capacitances Cj and C^ in
series with the inductances Lj and Z2, respectively, we obtain
a resulting series impedance z^ (with /—1,2) given by:
1
zT = jcoL H . (3)

The latter impedance vanishes at the resonant frequency:

Fig. 1: A simple structure for realizing a resonant WPT system with directly 1
fed coil.

In the following, we consider synchronous resonators, i.e.

structures with the same resonant frequency:
1
DIEI Università di Perugia, via G .Duranti 93 Perugia Italy
2
ELEDIA Research Center@DISI, University of Trento

978-1-4673-5010-5/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE 17

 the resonators is a small fraction of the wavelength. As a
o ~~ / _, / _, • (5) consequence, the radiated power is a function of the total
v < < \ i. i. current on the resonators, considered as the sum of the
individual currents on each resonator. It is noted that, at the
Let us now add a voltage source Vj at the first resonator, normalized resonant frequency 1/Vl H- /c the two currents
thus obtaining the circuit shown in Fig. 2. are with the same direction, thus acting as a loop antenna
By writing Kirchhoff voltage law for the first and second with two turns. On the contrary, at the normalized resonant
resonator, we get the following equations: frequency 1/Vl - k the corresponding eigenvector represent
( \ two currents in opposite direction with negligible radiation
Vx = jwLxx + — I i + jo)MI2 effects.
V jwC\)
• (6)
f I TABLE I
*J jOJMI^ ~~r jCl/L2 i \ 2 EIGENVALUES AND EIGENVECTORS FOR THE MATRIX OF EQ. 11
I. j<oC2J
Equation (6) can be cast in matrix form as: Eigenvalues Normalized resonant Eigenvector
i frequency
m
F1 I 0 I \L 2
\ 1 v r2\ / 12\T
V 1 171
1 1+k V/TXT
'\i + k 11
icuL =\ i— 2 I • (7) 1-k 1/ 1 -1

L ° J \k 12\ ! 2
When considering the natural resonances o f the system w e Table 1 Eigenvalues and eigenvectors for the matrix of eq. (11) for the
case N=2.
have:
[L1
_
I 2 • (8)

\k L LI 2J I ffl A I J
L \L2 ]
The matrix on the left side of eq. (8) can be written as:
1
r — i l n~
JL, 1 ft, 2 JL, 0
1 7 1 /"H (9) Fig. 3: Equivalent network representation of two resonating coils coupled via
J
0 T = f L ' 2 J their magnetic fields and the corresponding excitation (P1) and output (P2)
IT
ports.
L V2 J Starting from circuit in Fig. 2, setting Lj=L2=L, C7=C2=C,
By multiplying both sides of eq. (8) with the diagonal matrix and defining the input and output ports P1 and P2 with the
appearing at the right side of eq. (9), and by defining the same impedance Z o as shown in Fig. 3. it is possible to
normalized currents as: obtain the S21 parameter at the two resonant frequencies G)J
r~ i \ju
1 V 1
o \[i i J
(10) and d>2. By solving the following system of equations with
~ - r— V1=2

L72 J L ° v^JLAJ \ 1 I
2= icoL-\ + Z0 \L-\-jcoML
eq. (8) becomes the following one:
I 1 l
'~**' '~**' 0 = ja>MI 1 + ja>L + h Z 0 \I2
1 K2 Mi J/, we obtain from I2 the S21 scattering parameter as described in
[kl2 1 J[/2J \I2\
[6]:
It is apparent that the normalized resonant frequencies are I1 k
2J 12
the inverse square root of the eigenvalues / t of the coupling s2i(Mi)=^±£±E^ (14)
matrix as: Zo-2J \L fc
"
0)j 1
?j £k12
bn-iypJn) — r (15)
The eigenvalue of eq. (11) are the currents and play an Za+2j
L
" fc

important role with respect to radiation. In fact, in typical ^C^/l-fc12

wireless power transfer applications, the distance between

18
 From eq. (14) and (15) we can recognize that the
transmission between the two ports is almost unity when
ZQ « -J L/C . It is interesting to note that the smaller the
coupling coefficient kj2 is the closer are the two 02ivalues.
In the structure of Fig. 3 the resonators are directly
connected to the source and load ports; this fact causes a
degradation of the transmission between the two ports when
the port impedance does not satisfy ZQ « -JL/C. As a
possible mean to reduce such degradation, it is possible to
use an indirect feeding method adopting two non-resonant
loops that couples with the resonator inductors. Doing so, an
impedance transformer is introduced that transforms the high
port impedance in a very low value on the resonator side.
The simulation is performed by solving Maxwell equation
by FEM taking into account radiation effects. The results,
given in Fig. 5, shows a large radiation peak at 223.78 MHz
that corresponds to a radiation resistance of 0.149 Ohm. By
denoting with Y the loop radius and with A the free space
wavelength at the resonant frequency, we can compute the
radiation resistance as [8]:
Rrad = 31171 (—J (16)
As a result we obtain the value of 0.143 Ohm, which is
very close to the fullwave simulated value.
We have performed a second simulation using a spiral
resonator made of perfect conductor, where the capacitance
is distributed. The structure is shown in Fig. 6 and even in
this case we can observe a radiation. In fact a reflection
coefficient of 3.4 dB is observed at the resonant frequency.

Fig. 4: An example of directly feed resonator; the 70 mm diameter loop

corresponds to the inductances while the capacitor is obtained by a small
circular flat cylinders of diameter 14 mm with an air gap of 0.5 mm. The
red cone corresponds to lumped port of 1 Ohm impedance.
Fig. 6: Single helical resonator with 9 turns, external radius 21.5 mm and
7 mm length; the red cone represents a 1 Ohm port.

Fig. 5: Reflection coefficient as obtained from a FEM fullwave

simulation of the single resonator shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 7: Reflection coefficient as obtained from a FEM fullwave
simulation of the single helical resonator shown in Fig. 6.
An additional degree of freedom when designing resonant
WPT systems, is added by using self-resonating helical coils
which present a distributed capacitance. IV. RADIATION FROM COUPLED RESONATORS.
The coupled resonator structure of Fig. 3 has been
III. RADIATION FROM SINGLE LOOP AND SINGLE implemented as a lossless structure and simulated on a FEM
fullwave simulator. Fig. 8 shows the implemented structure.
SPIRAL The simulated response of the structure is given in Fig. 10. It
We have investigated the radiation from a single loop by is possible to note the two expected resonances, but a
simulating it by a fullwave FEM simulator [7]. The structure significant difference on the values of the S21 parameter at the
is composed of a single loop made of perfect conductor and a two resonant frequencies.
capacitor fed by a 1 Ohm port as shown in Fig. 5. In particular, at the lower resonant frequency considerable
unwanted radiation is present. On the contrary, at the higher
resonant frequency radiation is almost negligible, thus making

19
the use of this frequency more appropriate for mid-range
WPT. From the geometrical dimensions of the structure an
inductance value of 185.6 nH a capacitance of 2.72 pF and a
coupling factor k12 of 0.112 are derived. From eq. (14) and
eq.(15) the expected value of the S21 parameter at ω 1 and ω2
are respectively -0.00141 dB and -0.00112 dB, while the
simulated ones are -1.838 dB and -0.006539 dB.
Fig. 8: An example of directly feed resonators; the 70 mm diameter loops
corresponds to the inductances while the capacitors are obtained by small
circular flat cylinders of diameter 14 mm with an air gap of 0.5 mm. The
loops are at 35 mm apart. The red cones corresponds to lumped ports of 1
Ohm impedance.
Fig. 9: Equivalent circuit of the coupled loop resonators including the
radiation resistance R1.
Fig. 10: Scattering parameters as obtained from a FEM fullwave
simulation of the coupled loop resonators shown in Fig. 8.
The discrepancy at the ω 1 resonant frequency is due to the
radiation from the resonant currents as can be observed from
the energy balance illustrated in Fig 1 1 . The loss behavior of
the structure is modeled by the lumped circuit shown in Fig. 9.
In this case, the radiation losses are modeled by a resistor R1
with the same value of the radiation resistance of a single loop
(R1=0.143 Ohm) in the shunt branch of the circuit. The
comparison on transmitted power between the lumped circuit
and the fullwave simulation is given in Fig. 12. It is apparent
the good agreement of the lumped model to the fullwave
simulation at the resonant frequencies.
20
V. CONCLUSIONS
We have studied the behavior of coupled resonators for
WPT applications. It has been shown that a WPT system
present significant radiation at its lower resonant frequency.
On the contrary, at the higher resonant frequency radiation is
almost negligible, thus making the use of this frequency more
appropriate for mid-range WPT.
Fig. 11: Energy balance from the fullwave FEM simulation for the lossless
coupled loop resonators shown in Fig. 8.
Frequency (MHz)
Fig. 12: Comparison of transmission as obtained from the equivalent circuit
(Fig. 9) and fullwave FEM simulation for the coupled loop resonators shown
in Fig. 8.
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