Wireless power transmission with rough beamforming method

The majority of people in the world lack access to the Internet. Google proposed the project Loon being developed for providing internet access to remote and rural areas. The project considers solar power for high-altitude balloons. However, the usage of solar power is limited due to time and place. Previously, we have developed the prototype of 5.8 GHz wireless power transmission system with high performance rectenna for an electric vehicle system. By using this experience, we have developed the rough beamforming method based 5.8 GHz wireless power transmission system for high-altitude balloons such as project Loon. In this paper, we describe the developed the rough beamforming method based 5.8 GHz wireless power transmission system. From the measurement results, beamforming phased array antenna can transmit power more efficiently compared with a horn antenna and array antenna without beamforming with increasing the transmission distance. For transmission distance of 1000 mm, beamforming phased array antenna can receive the power about 1.46 times compared with array antenna without beamforming.