[2023] Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems for Wireless Power Transfer

In recent years, wireless power transfer (WPT) has been widely used to charge smartphones, smart watches, biomedical implants, and other portable electronic devices. Despite the recent advances, WPT still shows disadvantages in energy efficiency, peak power, and, most importantly, the power delivery distance (charging range).

Recent research on WPT has shown good energy efficiency and simultaneous data transfer [1]. However, the delivered distance is still too short, which is limited to a few tens of centimeters. Longer power delivery distance usually means higher power loss, which significantly reduces the overall power efficiency. To overcome the wireless power transmission distance limit, new WPT techniques using microwave and infrared beams have been proposed [2]. However, the long-range WPT still suffers from significant power loss and low energy extraction efficiency at the receiver side.

In this project, we are going to design a long-range WPT receiver integrated circuit which achieves long WPT ranges with high end-to-end efficiency. The to-be-designed WPT system aims to wirelessly transfer power to a targeted receiver, which can be a drone, a smartphone, a biomedical implant, or a wearable device.

[1] S. Hong, "A 13.56MHz Current-Mode Wireless Power and Data Receiver with Efficient Power Extracting Controller and Energy-Shift Keying Technique for Loosely Coupled Implantable Devices," 2020 ISSCC, pp. 486-488.

[2] X. Zhu, K. Jin, Q. Hui, W. Gong, and D. Mao, "Long-Range Wireless Microwave Power Transmission: A Review of Recent Progress," IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 4932-4946, 2021

Assignment

1. Literature review of WPT topologies and associated power management circuits.

2. Design of a fully integrated CMOS circuit for the proposed WPT receiver. Tape-out is possible depending on the design and available time.

Requirements

You should be familiar with analog IC design and Cadence environment. If you are interested, please send your CV, BSc transcripts and MSc grades (obtained to date) to Sijun Du at email: Sijun.Du@tudelft.nl

Contact

Last modified: 2022-12-29