Analysis and comparison of multi-coil inductive power transfer systems

This paper presents a comparative analysis of Multi-Coil Inductive Power Transfer (MCIPT) systems. A multi-coil magnetic system can be decomposed into a single system of coils using matrix manipulation when the system is linear. A comparitive analytical study of air-cored coils to estimate the magnetic parameters — L, M, k of several coil shapes — circular, rectangular, square, segmented circular and segmented rectangular (DD) is then carried out. A misalignment shape characteristic is obtained and comparisons brought out. Important criteria to be considered for misalignment tolerant MCIPT is also described. A boundary for performance limits of misaligned multi-coil IPT systems is presented.