Coil Structure Optimization Method for Improving

Coupling Coefficient of Wireless Power Transfer

Hongchang Li, Kangping Wang, Lang Huang, Jie Li, and Xu Yang
School of Electrical Engineering
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi’an, China

Abstract—The low coupling coefficient is the main reason that II. ADVANTAGES OF IMPROVING THE COUPLING
results in difficulties to design a high performance mid-range COEFFIENT
wireless power transfer (WPT) system which uses magnetic
resonant coupling. The advantages of improving the coupling In this paper, we analyze the coupled resonant tank of a
coefficient are quantitatively discussed in this paper. It is WPT system using the fundamental harmonic analysis method.
highlighted that improving coupling coefficient is the only The equivalent circuit model in sinusoidal steady state is
method to reduce the sensitivity to frequencies. Furthermore, this shown in Fig. 1, where the resonant inductances are and ;
paper proposes a method that improves the coupling coefficient the resonant capacitances are and ; the equivalent series
by optimizing the structure of the coils. The optimization of a resistances are and ; and the mutual inductance is . The
pair of spiral coils is presented. The method has much lower driving source is modeled by a sine wave voltage source with
computation cost than finite element analysis (FEA) and its root-mean-square (RMS) value of and frequency of .
accuracy is sufficient for design procedures. The load is modeled by an equivalent resistance .
Keywords—coil structure; coupling coefficient; wireless power The coupling coefficient is defined as
transfer
M
k= (1)
I. INTRODUCTION L1 L2
Wireless power transfer (WPT) using magnetic resonant
coupling is becoming a hotspot to achieve near-field The advantages of improving the coupling coefficient are
transmission of energy. The low coupling coefficient of this quantitatively discussed as follows.
kind of WPT systems results in difficulties to achieve high
efficiency and large amount of power transfer. A. Enhancing the Power Transfer Capacity
A lot of analysis and design methods have been proposed to When the resonant frequency of and equals (the
increase the quality factor of the coils to compensate the low 1st design principle in [4]), the power transfer capacity is
coupling coefficient [1-3]. However, the coupled coils of high P = ωs MI1 I 2 (2)
quality factor are very sensitive to operating frequency and
resonant frequencies. A small tolerance or temperature drift
where and are the RMS values of resonant currents.
may cause significant decrease of power transfer capacity and
efficiency. Considering that the drive voltage and the output voltage
are much lower than the RMS resonant voltages and ,
The most immediate method to overcome the difficulties is we have
to improve the coupling coefficient. And it is possible even
with the limit of power transfer distance and coil diameters. U 1 ≈ ω s L 1 I1 (3)
This paper discusses the advantages of improving the coupling
coefficient and proposes a method that improves the coupling U 2 ≈ ωs L 2 I 2 (4)
coefficient by optimizing the coil structure.
By substituting (3), (4), and (1) into (2), it yields

P ≈ k U1 I1 U 2 I 2 (5)

The products and in (5) stand for the apparent power

of the resonances, which means the volt-ampere (VA) stress.
According to (5), the first advantage of improving the coupling
coefficient is enhancing the power transfer capacity with
limited VA stress.
Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit model of a WPT system in sinusoidal steady state.

978-1-4799-6735-3/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 2518

B. Increasing the Highest Possible Efficiency Then, the question is how to optimize the pitches in order to
When the resonant frequency of and equals and obtain the highest coupling coefficient. Supposing the two coils
the equivalent load resistance matches the mutual inductance are identical and coaxial, the power transfer distance is , the
(the 1st and 2nd design principles in [4]), the highest power radius of the coils is (outer turn), the radius of the cross
transfer efficiency is a function of figure-of-merit, and is also a section of conductor is , the number of turns is , and the
function of coupling coefficient: pitches are ( 1. . 1 from outer turn to inner turn), the
optimization problem can be summarized as
2 2
η max = 1 − = 1− (6) max k ( pi )
2 2
fom + 1 + 1 k Q1Q2 + 1 + 1
⎧ N −1
⎪ ∑ pi < r (12)
where is the quality factor of coil ( 1, 2): s.t. ⎨ i =1
⎪ p > 2a
ωs Ln ⎩ i
Qn = (7)
Rn We need two assumptions to solve this problem: 1) the
length of the coils is much shorter than the wavelength (this is
According to (6), the second advantage of improving the true when the resonant capacitances are proved by external
coupling coefficient is increasing the highest possible capacitors), and 2) the resonant current is uniformly distributed
efficiency (for fixed quality factors). on the cross section of the conductor (e.g., the coils are made
by Litz wire). Based on these two assumptions, the magnetic
C. Reducing the Sensitivity to Frequencies
field built by the coupled coils is a quasi-static field. Then, the
The WPT system’s sensitivity to frequencies (operating inductances and the coupling coefficient can be calculated by
frequency and resonant frequencies) can be described by the using the geometric parameters.
loaded quality factors. The higher loaded quality factors, the
higher sensitivity to frequencies. When the resonant frequency To simplify the calculation, we use concentric annulus to
of and equals (again, the 1st design principle in [4]), model the spiral coil. As shown in Fig. 3, the magnetic field
the loaded quality factors can be represented by built in Fig. 3(b) is almost same to the field built in Fig. 3(a)
when the current in all the turns are identical.
ωs L 1
Q1L = (8)
R1 + Rr

ωs L 2
Q2 L = (9)
R2 + RE

where is the reflected resistance:

(a)
(ω s M )
2

Rr = (10)
R2 + RE

Considering that , we have

1
Q1L Q2 L ≈ (11)
k2

According to (11), the third advantage of improving the

coupling coefficient is reducing the sensitivity to frequencies.
Actually, it is the only method to reduce the sensitivity to
frequencies. The benefit of low sensitivity to frequencies is that
the system allows larger tolerance and temperature drift.
(b)
Fig. 2. The decreasing degree of mutual inductance is smaller than those of
the self-inductances when increasing the pitches of turns: (a) tightly wounded
coils, (b) loosely wounded coils.

III. IMPROVING COUPLING COEFFICIENT BY OPTIMIZING

p1 p2 p1 p2
COIL STRUCTURE
I I
The basic principle of improving coupling coefficient is
reducing the self-inductances while maintaining the mutual
inductance. Fig. 2 shows that the self-inductances of the tightly r r
wounded spiral coils can be reduced by increasing the pitches
of turns. In the meantime, the decreasing degree of mutual (a) (b)
inductance is smaller than those of the self-inductances.
According to (1), the coupling coefficient is improved. Fig. 3. (a) The spriral coil, and (b) concentric annulus.

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 Now, we can calculate the self-inductance of one coil using Third, calculating the self-inductance of the coil by adding up
the method in [5] as follows: the self-inductances and the mutual inductances of the turns:
First, calculating the self-inductance of each turns: ⎛ ⎞
N N

⎛ 8r 7 ⎞ L = ∑ ⎜ Li + ∑ M ij ⎟ (22)
Li = μ0 ri ⎜ ln i − ⎟ (13) ⎜
i =1 ⎜ j =1
⎟⎟
⎝ a 4⎠ ⎝ j ≠i ⎠

where is the permeability of vacuum, and is the radius of The next step is to calculate the mutual inductance of the
the ith turn: two coils.
i −1 When the two coils are identical and coaxial, the mutual
ri = r − ∑ p j (14) inductance between the ith turns in one coil and the jth turns in
j =1 the other coil can also be calculated using (15) or (17).
However, we need to make some changes in the expressions of
Second, calculating the mutual inductance between ith and jth ∆, , and , as follows:
turns by using series
2 ri rj
μ0π 2ri rj 3 Δ= (23)
⎡ 1
d 2 + ( r1 + rj )
2
M ij = q ⎢1 + q 2 + " + An q 2 n + "
4

1+ q ⎣ 4
(15)
1 2n + 1 ⎤ 2
+ q +" + An q 2 n +1 + "⎥ ⎛4 2 ⎞
⎜ d + ( ri + rj ) − d + ( ri − rj )
2 2 2
2 ( n + 1)
4
2 ⎥⎦ ⎟
q =⎜ ⎟ (24)
⎜ 4 d 2 + ( ri + rj ) + 4 d 2 + ( ri − rj )
2 2
when ⎟
⎝ ⎠
2 ri rj
d 2 + ( ri − rj )
2
Δ= < 0.9 (16)
ri + rj m= (25)
d 2 + ( ri + rj )
2

and by using series

μ0 ri rj ⎡⎛ Then, we can calculate the mutual inductance of the two coils

m2 m4 ⎞ 4 by adding up all the mutual inductances of the couples of turns:
M ij = ⎢⎜1 + + + " ⎟ ln
Δ ⎣⎝ 4 64 ⎠ m
(17) N N

⎛ m2 m4 ⎞⎤ M = ∑∑ M ij (26)
−⎜2 − + " ⎟⎥ i =1 j =1
⎝ 4 128 ⎠ ⎦
Finally, the coupling coefficient k as a function of pitches
when 1. . is obtained using (22), (26), and (1). And we can
substitute the expression of into (12) to optimize the coil
2 ri rj structure. The computation cost of this method is much lower
Δ= > 0.9 (18) than that of finite element analysis (FEA) so that (12) can be
ri + rj
solved in a short time.
where IV. AN EXAMPLE OF THE OPTIMIZATION
2 A set of geometric parameters of the spiral coils in Fig. 2 is
⎛ r +r − ri − rj ⎞ listed in Table I except the pitches of turns, which are variables
q=⎜ ⎟
i j
(19) of the optimization problem. With different and (there are
⎜⎜ ⎟
r +r + ri − rj ⎟ only 3 turns), the coupling coefficient of the two coils is
⎝ i j ⎠
calculated using the method in III and the results are shown in
Fig. 4 and Table II.
ri − rj
m= (20) Table I
ri + rj
A SET OF GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS OF THE SPIRAL COILS
and Parameter Value
2 d 300 mm
⎡1× 3 × 5 ×" × ( 2n − 1) ⎤ r 150 mm
An = ⎢ ⎥ (21)
⎣ 2 × 4 × 6 × " × 2n ⎦ a 1 mm
3

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 It should be noticed that the radius of the coils (outer turn)
is still 150mm. The only difference after optimization is that
0.03 the radiuses of the inner turns are smaller, and that is why it
improves the coupling coefficient. The FEA simulation results
0.028 agree with the calculation results.

0.026 V. CONCLUSION
k

For mid-range wireless power transfer systems which use

0.024 magnetic resonant coupling, the advantages of improving the
coupling coefficient are 1) enhancing power transfer capacity;
0.022 2) increasing the highest possible efficiency; and 3) reducing
0
20
the sensitivity to frequencies. Under the limits of power
40 30
40 transfer distance and coil radius, the coupling coefficient can
20
60 10 be improved by optimizing the coil structure (pitches of turns).
0
p2 (mm) p1 (mm) As an example, the structure optimization of a pair of spiral
coils achieves 21% improvement in coupling coefficient.
Fig. 4. Coupling coefficient with different and .
REFERENCES
Table II [1] Z. Yang, W. Liu, and E. Basham, “Inductor modeling in wireless links
for implantable electronics,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, vol. 43,
COMPARISION OF THE TIGHTLY WOUNDED COILS AND THE no. 10, pp. 3851-3860, Oct. 2007.
OPTIMIZAED COILS
[2] Z. Pantic, B. Heacock, and S. Lukic, “Magnetic link optimization for
Parameter Tightly wounded coils Optimized coils wireless power transfer applications: modeling and experimental
validation for resonant tubular coils,” in IEEE ECCE, 2012, pp. 3825-
2 mm 10 mm
3832.
2 mm 25 mm
[3] S. H. Lee, and R. D. Lorenz, “Surface spiral coil design methodologies
0.0241 0.0292 for high efficiency, high Power, low flux density, large air- gap wireless
0.0240 0.0291 power transfer systems,” in APEC, 2013, pp. 1783-1790.
[4] H. Li, X. Yang, K. Wang, and X. Dong, “Study on efficiency
maximization design principles for wireless power transfer system using
The calculation results show the coupling coefficient of the magnetic resonant coupling,” in IEEE ECCE Asia, 2013, pp. 888-892.
tightly wounded coils ( 2mm ) is 0.0241 . In [5] П. Л. Калантаров, and Л. А. Цейтлин, Inductance calculation manual,
contrast, the peak coupling coefficient at 10mm and China Machine Press, Beijing, 1992.
25mm is 0.0292. The improvement is about 21%.

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