Comparative performance evaluation of magnetic couplers for Wireless Power Transfer applications

A magnetic coupler is a system composed by an emitter inductor and a receiver inductor existing between them a certain magnetic coupling. The geometric shape of these inductors determine the performance of the coupler under lateral, axial or angular misalignment, affecting the power transferred to the load in a Wireless Power Transfer application. The objective of this paper is to compare couplers in terms of uncompensated apparent power, self inductance variation and coupling coefficient variation under spatial misalignment between emitter and receiver, based on a hypothetical application example. Finite element method simulations are used. Also, the simulations are employed to identify geometric parameters strongly correlated with uncompensated power.