Due to the loose coupling nature and separated primary/secondary side, achieving tight load regulation or implementing closed-loop control of output voltage/current is nontrivial in a wireless power transfer (WPT) system. Previously presented methods for regulating or controlling the output of a WPT system include incorporating either post-regulator stage, wireless communication from secondary to primary side, primary side sensing and modulation scheme, or dual active bridge type of topology. However, all existing methods have limitations and disadvantages in terms of increased size/cost, control complexity, or reliability in electrically noisy environments. This dissertation proposes a single switch control and regulation mechanism based on the secondary side of the WPT system. Specifically, the duty cycle of the secondary side synchronous rectifier (SR) switch is modulated to control the output voltage or current. By modulating the SR duty cycle, output of the WPT system can be controlled without requiring additional regulator stages/power devices, a primary side sensing mechanism, or secondary to primary communication. The proposed control method lowers cost and simplifies the design of WPT systems while improving reliability in noisy environments. The proposed control and modulation mechanism maintains zero voltage switching of all power semiconductor switches so efficiency of the WPT system would not be compromised by implementing the proposed control scheme. The proposed secondary side SR based control method can be applied to dc-dc WPT systems to control output voltage or current, or it could be used in a dc-ac WPT system to generate and regulate ac output if combined with an unfolding stage. When used in dc-ac WPT systems, the bulky output filter stage usually required in conventional dc-ac inverters is eliminated. The proposed control scheme is evaluated with computer simulation as well as hardware implementation and testing. / Doctor of Philosophy / Wireless power transfer (WPT) is an emerging technology that supplies electric power to loads without using wires or electrical contacts. WPT technology has many promising uses in consumer, industrial, transportation, biomedical, and other applications. However, unlike controlling the output voltage of a conventional power supply or power converter, controlling the output of a WPT system is not a simple task due to the physical separation between the transmitting and receiving sides. State-of-the-art methods for controlling the output of a WPT system include adding another power regulator stage to regulate output, incorporating secondary side (power receiver) to primary side (power transmitter) communication so that output information can be passed back to the primary side where that information is used to monitor and regulate output. In some systems, output information may also be estimated indirectly from primary side voltage/current information. However, all these methods have significant disadvantages. Adding another power converter stage increases cost and efficiency loss of the WPT system. Incorporating secondary to primary communication for output control is detrimental to the reliability of the PWT system because communication may be impacted by external noise. The reliability of primary side sensing and regulation is also severely impacted by component parameter variations in the WPT system. This dissertation proposes a new mechanism that controls output of a WPT system at the receiver or secondary side without needing another power conversion stage, communication or any cooperation from primary side. The proposed control mechanism controls the turn on duration of the synchronous rectifier (SR) switch at the receiver side to modulate output voltage or current. Since SR technology is already prevalently used in power electronics systems, including WPT systems, to efficiently convert high frequency ac to dc before delivering power to the load, implementing the proposed control mechanism does not increase complexity or cost of the WPT system. The proposed control mechanism is useful in both dc-dc and dc-ac WPT systems. In a dc-dc WPT system, the proposed mechanism can control or regulate output voltage or current independently from the primary side, while in a dc-ac WPT system the proposed mechanism can generate and regulate ac output. If used in a dc-ac WPT system an unfolding stage needs to be added, but the bulky output filter stage required in conventional pulse width modulation (PWM) dc-ac inverters for suppressing switching ripple is not needed. The proposed mechanism is verified with computer simulation as well as hardware prototyping in this dissertation.

No description available.

<p>The advent of resonant metamaterials with strongly dispersive behavior allowed scientists to design new electromagnetic devices -- including (but not limited to) absorbers, antennas, lenses, holograms, and arguably the most well-known of them all, invisibility cloaks -- exhibiting properties that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. At the heart of these breakthrough designs is our ability to model the behavior of individual metamaterial elements as Lorentzian dipoles, and -- in applications that call for it -- collectively model an entire array of such elements as a homogenous medium with effective electromagnetic properties retrieved from measurements or simulations. </p><p>Of particular interest in the context of this dissertation is a certain type of metamaterials elements which -- while composed entirely of essentially non-magnetic materials -- respond to a magnetic field, can be modeled as magnetic dipoles, and are able to form a material with effective magnetic response. This thesis describes how such ``magnetic metamaterials'' have been utilized by the author when designing devices for applications in wireless power transfer (WPT) and computational imaging. For the former, I discuss in the thesis a metamaterial implementation of a magnetic `superlens' for wireless power transfer enhancements, and a magnetic reflector for near field shielding. For the latter I detail how we model the imaging capabilities of a recently-introduced class of dispersive metamaterial-based leaky apertures that produce pseudo-random measurement modes, and demonstration of novel Lorentzian-constrained holograms able to tailor their radiation patterns. </p><p>To design a magnetic superlens for WPT enhancements, we first demonstrate how an array comprising resonant metamaterial elements can act as an effective medium with negative permeability ($\mu$) and enhance near-field transmission of quasi-static non-resonant coil antennas. We implement a new technique to retrieve all diagonal components of our superlens' permeability, including its normal component, which standard techniques cannot retrieve. We study the effect of different components of the $\mu$ tensor on field enhancements using analytical solutions as well as 2D rotationally-symmetric full-wave simulations which approximate the lens as a disc of equal diameter, enabling highly efficient axisymmetric description of the problem. Our studies indicate enhancements are strongest when all three diagonal components of Re$(\mu)$ are negative, which we attribute to the excitation of surface waves.</p><p>The ability to retrieve permeability's normal component, awarded to us with the implementation of the aforementioned retrieval technique, directly enabled the design of a near field magnetic shield, which -- in contrast to the tripple-negative superlens -- relies on the normal component of $\mu$ assuming values near zero. The thesis discusses the theory behind this phenomenon and explains why such an anisotropic slab is capable of reflecting magnetic fields with component of their wave vector parallel to the slab's surface (fields which contain significant portions of the energy transferred in WPT systems with dipole-like coils). Furthermore, the dispersive nature of the resonant metamaterials used to realize the shield grants us the ability to block certain frequencies while allowing the transmission of other, which can be particularly useful in certain applications; conventional materials used for shielding or electromagnetic interference (EMI) suppression, on the other hand, block frequencies indiscriminately. </p><p>The thesis also discusses a single-pixel, metamaterial-based aperture we designed for computational imaging purposes. This aperture, termed \textit{metaimager}, forms pseudo-random radiation patterns that vary with frequency by leaking energy from a guided mode via a collection of randomly distributed resonant metamaterial elements. The metaimager, then, is able to interrogate a scene without any moving parts or expensive auxiliary hardware (both are common problems which plague synthetic aperture and phased array systems, respectively). While such a structure cannot be homogenized, when modeling its imaging capabilities we still rely on the fact each of its irises can be modeled analytically as a magnetic dipole using a relatively simple Lorentzian expression. Accurate qualitative modeling of such apertures is of paramount importance in the design and optimization stages, since it allows us to save time and money by avoiding prohibitively slow full-wave simulations of such complex structures and unnecessary fabrication processes. </p><p>Lastly, the thesis discusses how such an aperture can be viewed as a hologram in which pixels are realized by the metamaterial elements and the reference wave is realized by the fields that excite them. While the current metaimager implementation produces pseudo-random modes, the last section of the thesis discusses how, by accounting for the Lorentzian constraints of each pixel, a novel metamaterial hologram can be designed to yield tailored radiation patterns. An experiment utilizing a Fraunhofer hologram excited in a free-space illumination configuration indicates tailored modes can indeed be formed by carefully choosing the resonance frequency and location of each metamaterial. While this proof-of-concept example is relatively simple, more sophisticated realizations of such holograms can be explored in future works.</p> / Dissertation

Rodents are essential models for research on fundamental neurological processing and for testing of therapeutic manipulations including drug efficacy studies. Telemetry acquisition from rodents is important in biomedical research and requires a long-term powering method. A wireless power transfer (WPT) scheme is desirable to power the telemetric devices for rodents. This dissertation investigates a WPT system to deliver power from a stationary source (primary coil) to a moving telemetric device (secondary coil) via magnetic resonant coupling. The continuously changing orientation of the rodent leads to coupling loss/problems between the primary and secondary coils, presenting a major challenge. We designed a novel secondary circuit employing ferrite rods placed at specific locations and orientations within the coil. The simulation and experimental results show a significant increase of power transfer using our ferrite arrangement, with improved coupling at most orientations. The use of a medium-ferrite-angled (4MFA) configuration further improved power transfer. Initially, we designed a piezoelectric-based device to harvest the kinetic energy available from the natural movement of the rodent; however, the harvested power was insufficient to power the telemetric devices for the rodents. After designing our 4MFA device, we designed a novel wireless measurement system (WMS) to collect real-time performance data from the secondary circuit while testing WPT systems. This prevents the measurement errors associated with voltage/current probes or coaxial cables placed directly into the primary magnetic field. The maximum total efficiency of our novel WPT is 14.1% when the orientation of the 4MFA is parallel to the primary electromagnetic field, and a current of 2.0 A (peak-to-peak) is applied to the primary coil. We design a novel controllable WPT system to facilitate the use of multiple secondary circuits (telemetric devices) to operate within a single primary coil. Each telemetric device can tune or detune its resonant frequency independently of the others using its internal control algorithm. / Graduate / 2018-04-26

This dissertation considers three related problems in distributed transmission and reception networks. Generally speaking, these types of networks have a transmit cluster with one or more transmit nodes and a receive cluster with one or more receive nodes. Nodes within a given cluster can communicate with each other using a wired or wireless local area network (LAN/WLAN). The overarching goal in this setting is typically to increase the efficiency of communication between the transmit and receive clusters through techniques such as distributed transmit beamforming, distributed reception, or other distributed versions of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communication. More recently, the problem of wireless power transfer has also been considered in this setting. The first problem considered by this dissertation relates to distributed reception in a setting with a single transmit node and multiple receive nodes. Since exchanging lightly quantized versions of in-phase and quadrature samples results in high throughput requirements on the receive LAN/WLAN, previous work has considered an approach where nodes exchange hard decisions, along with channel magnitudes, to facilitate combining similar to an ideal receive beamformer. It has been shown that this approach leads to a small loss in SNR performance, with large reductions in required LAN/WLAN throughput. A shortcoming of this work, however, is that all of the prior work has assumed that each receive node has a perfect estimation of its channel to the transmitter. To address this shortcoming, the first part of this dissertation investigates the effect of channel estimation error on the SNR performance of distributed reception. Analytical expressions for these effects are obtained for two different modulation schemes, M-PSK and M2-QAM. The analysis shows the somewhat surprising result that channel estimation error causes the same amount of performance degradation in ideal beamforming and pseudo-beamforming systems despite the fact that the channel estimation errors manifests themselves quite differently in both systems. The second problem considered in this dissertation is related to oscillator stability and phase noise modeling. In distributed transmission systems with multiple transmitters in the transmit cluster, synchronization requirements are typically very strict, e.g., on the order of one picosecond, to maintain radio frequency phase alignment across transmitters. Therefore, being able to accurately model the behavior of the oscillators and their phase noise responses is of high importance. Previous approaches have typically relied on a two-state model, but this model is often not sufficiently rich to model low-cost oscillators. This dissertation develops a new three-state oscillator model and a method for estimating the parameters of this model from experimental data. Experimental results show that the proposed model provides up to 3 dB improvement in mean squared error (MSE) performance with respect to a two-state model. The last part of this work is dedicated to the problem of wireless power transfer in a setting with multiple nodes in the transmit cluster and multiple nodes in the receive cluster. The problem is to align the phases of the transmitters to achieve a certain power distribution across the nodes in the receive cluster. To find optimum transmit phases, we consider a iterative approach, similar to the prior work on one-bit feedback for distributed beamforming, in which each receive node sends a one-bit feedback to the transmit cluster indicating if the received power in that time slot for that node is increased. The transmitters then update their phases based on the feedback. What makes this problem particularly interesting is that, unlike the prior work on one-bit feedback for distributed beamforming, this is a multi-objective optimization problem where not every receive node can receive maximum power from the transmit array. Three different phase update decision rules, each based on the one-bit feedback signals, are analyzed. The effect of array sparsity is also investigated in this setting.

Novel techniques for high-performance wireless power transmission and data interfacing with implantable medical devices (IMDs) were proposed. Several system- and circuit-level techniques were developed towards the design of a novel wireless data and power transmission link for a multi-channel inductively-powered wireless implantable neural-recording and stimulation system. Such wireless data and power transmission techniques have promising prospects for use in IMDs such as biosensors and neural recording/stimulation devices, neural interfacing experiments in enriched environments, radio-frequency identification (RFID), smartcards, near-field communication (NFC), wireless sensors, and charging mobile devices and electric vehicles. The contributions in wireless power transfer are the development of an RFID-based closed-loop power transmission system, a high-performance 3-coil link with optimal design procedure, circuit-based theoretical foundation for magnetic-resonance-based power transmission using multiple coils, a figure-of-merit for designing high-performance inductive links, a low-power and adaptive power management and data transceiver ASIC to be used as a general-purpose power module for wireless electrophysiology experiments, and a Q-modulated inductive link for automatic load matching. In wireless data transfer, the contributions are the development of a new modulation technique called pulse-delay modulation for low-power and wideband near-field data communication and a pulse-width-modulation impulse-radio ultra-wideband transceiver for low-power and wideband far-field data transmission.

Non-radiative wireless power transfer using the coupled mode resonance phenomenon has been widely reported in the literature. However, the distance over which such phenomenon exists is very short when measured in terms of wavelength. In this dissertation, how efficient wireless power transfer can be realized in the radiating near-field region beyond the coupled mode resonance region is investigated. First, electrically small folded cylindrical helix (FCH) dipole antennas are designed to achieve efficient near-field power transfer. Measurements show that a 40% power transfer efficiency (PTE) can be realized at the distance of 0.25λ between two antennas in the co-linear configuration. These values come very close to the theoretical upper bound derived based on the spherical mode theory. The results also highlight the importance of antenna radiation efficiency and impedance matching in achieving efficient wireless power transfer. Second, antenna diversity is explored to further extend the range or efficiency of the power transfer. For transmitter diversity, it is found that a stable PTE region can be created when multiple transmitters are employed at sufficiently close spacing. For receiver diversity, it is found that the overall PTE can be improved as the number of the receivers is increased. Third, small directive antennas are investigated as a means of enhancing near-field wireless power transfer. Small directive antennas based on the FCH design are also implemented to enhance the PTE. It is shown that the far-field realized gain is a good surrogate for designing small directive antennas for near-field power transfer. Fourth, to examine the effects of surrounding environments on near-field coupling, an upper bound for near-field wireless power transfer is derived when a transmitter and a received are separated by a spherical material shell. The derived PTE bounds are verified using full-wave electromagnetic simulation and show good agreement for both TM mode and TE mode radiators. Using the derived theory, lossy dielectric material effects on wireless power transfer are studied. Power transfer measurements through walls are also reported and compared with the theory. Lastly, electrically small circularly polarized antennas are investigated as a means of alleviating orientation dependence in near-field wireless power transfer. An electrically small turnstile dipole antenna is designed by utilizing top loading and multiple folding. The circularly polarization characteristic of the design is first tested in the far field, before the antennas are placed in the radiating near-field region for wireless power transfer. It is shown that such circularly polarized antennas can lessen orientation dependence in near-field coupling. / text

This thesis investigates near-field wireless power transfer using multiple transmitters or multiple receivers. First, transmitter diversity is investigated in terms of the power transfer efficiency (PTE). It is found that an improvement in the PTE can be achieved by increasing the number of transmitters. Furthermore, a region of constant PTE can be created with the proper arrangement of transmitters. Next, receiver diversity is investigated in detail. An improvement in the PTE can be also achieved by increasing the number of receivers. However, it is shown that when two or more receivers are closely located, the PTE is reduced due to mutual coupling between receivers. This is termed a ‘sink’ phenomenon, and it is investigated through measurement and simulation. Finally, to account for more general situations of multiple transmitters and multiple receivers, Monte-Carlo simulation is applied. The cumulative distribution function (CDF) is used to interpret the results of the Monte-Carlo simulation. The transmitter and receiver diversity gain can be found based on the CDF. Moreover, the sink phenomenon can be observed by analyzing the CDF curve. Several strategies for positioning receivers are introduced to reduce the sink phenomenon. The results of the Monte-Carlo simulation also show that a saturation in the transmitter or receiver gain is reached when the number of transmitters or receivers is increased. Therefore, increasing the number of transmitters or receivers beyond a certain number does not help increase the PTE. / text

Wireless backhaul communication and power transfer can make the deployment of outdoor small cells (SCs) more cost effective; thus, their rapid densification can be enabled. For the first time, solar cells can be leveraged for the two-fold function of energy harvesting (EH) and high speed optical wireless communication. In this thesis, two complementary concepts for power provision to SCs are researched using solar cells – the optical wireless power transfer (OWPT) in the nighttime and solar EH during daytime. A harvested power of 1W is considered to be required for an autonomous SC operation. The conditions of darkness – worst case scenario – are initially selected, because the SC needs to harvest power in the absence of ambient light. The best case scenario of daytime SC EH from sunlight is then explored to determine the required battery size and the additional power from optical sources. As a first approach, an indoor 5m experimental link is created using a white light-emitting diode for OWPT to an amorphous silicon (Si) solar panel. Despite the use of a large mirror for collimation, the harvested power and energy efficiency of the link are measured to be only 18:3mW and 0:1%, respectively. Up to five red laser diodes (LDs) with lenses and crystalline Si (c-Si) cells are used in a follow-up study to increase the link efficiency. A maximum power efficiency of 3:2% is measured for a link comprising two LDs and a mono-c-Si cell, and the efficiency of all of its components is determined. Also, the laser system is shown to achieve an improvement of the energy efficiency by 2:7 times compared with a state-of-the-art inductive power transfer system with dipole coils. Since the harvested power is only 25:7mW, an analytical model for an elliptical Gaussian beam is developed to determine the required number of LDs for harvesting 1W; this shows an estimated number of 61 red LDs with 50mW of output optical power per device. However, a beam enclosure of the developed Class 3B laser system of up to a 3:6m distance is required for eye safety. A simulation study is conducted in Zemax for the design of an outdoor 100m infrared wireless link able to harvest 1W under clear weather conditions. Harvesting 1:2W and meeting eye safety regulations for Class 1 are shown to be feasible by a 1550 nm laser link. The required number of laser power converters is estimated to be 47 with an area of 5 5mm2 per device. Also, the dimensions of the transmitter and receiver are considered to be acceptable for the practical application of SC EH. In the last part of this thesis, two multi-c-Si solar panels are initially used for EH in an outdoor environment during daytime. The power supply of at least 1W is shown to be achievable during hour periods under sunny and cloudy conditions. A maximum average power of 4:1W is measured in the partial presence of clouds using a 10W solar panel. Since the variability of weather conditions induces the harvested power to fluctuate with values of mW, the use of optical sources is required in periods of insufficient solar EH for SCs. Therefore, a hybrid solar/laser based EH design is proposed for a continuous annual SC provision of 1Win ‘darker’ places on earth such as Edinburgh, UK. The 10W multi-c-Si solar panel and the 1550 nm laser link are considered; thus, the feasibility of supplying the SC with at least 1Wper hour monthly using a battery with energy content of only 60Wh is shown through simulations. A maximum monthly average harvested power of 824mW is shown to be required by the 1550 nm laser system that has already been overachieved through simulations in Zemax.

Tremendousadvancement inultra-low powerelectronics and radiocommunica tionshas significantly contributed towards the fabrication of miniaturized biomedical sensors capable of capturing physiological data and transmitting them wirelessly. However, most of the wearable sensors require a battery for their operation. The battery serves as one of the critical bottlenecks to the development of novel wearable applications, as the limitations offered by batteries are affecting the development of new form-factors and longevity of wearable devices. In this work, we introduce a novel concept, namely Intra-Body Power Transfer (IBPT), to alleviate the limitations and problems associated with batteries, and enable wireless, batteryless wearable devices. The innovation of IBPT is to utilize the human body as the medium to transfer power to passive wearable devices, as opposed to employingon-boardbatteries for each individual device. The proposed platform eliminates the on-board rigid battery for ultra-low power and ultra-miniaturized sensors such that their form-factor can be flexible, ergonomically designed to be placed on small body parts. The platform also eliminates the need for battery maintenance (e.g., recharging or replacement) for multiple wearable devices other than the central power source. The performance of the developed system is tested and evaluated in comparison to traditional Radio Frequency based solutions that can be harmful to human interaction. The system developed is capable of harvesting on average 217µW at 0.43V and provides an average sleep/high impedance mode voltage of 4.5V.