A Novel Architecture of Retro-reflective Beamforming for Wireless Power Transmission

A novel architecture of retro-reflective beamforming is proposed for wireless power transmission applications. In contrast to the conventional architecture with a two-dimensional wireless power transmitting antenna array controlled by a two-dimensional pilot signal receiving antenna array, the novel architecture includes a two-dimensional wireless power transmitting antenna array controlled by multiple one-dimensional pilot signal receiving antenna arrays. The architecture proposed in this paper has better flexibility and lower cost than conventional schemes of retro-reflective beamforming. Theoretical analysis indicates that the novel architecture has similar performance compared with the conventional architecture when the location of a wireless power receiver with a clear line-of-sight path is not far off the broadside direction of the retro-reflective beamformer.