Reducing the impact of source internal resistance by source coil in resonant wireless power transfer

Wireless power transfer (WPT) is the state-of-the-art research interest. In the WPT system efficiency is an important figure of merit. In order to reduce the impact of the source internal resistance and improve the system efficiency of the conventional two-coil structure, a source coil is added to the two-coil structure, forming a three-coil structure. Both the two-coil structure and the three-coil structure are modeled and analyzed with the circuit theory. The system efficiencies of both structures with optimal loads and a fixed load are deduced. The system efficiency of the three-coil structure is proved to be higher than that of the two-coil structure. An experimental apparatus is implemented and the experimental results match well with the theoretical calculations. The larger the source internal resistance, the more significantly the addition of the source coil improves the system efficiency.