Improving efficiency of a standard compliant wireless battery charger for portable applications

Valeria Boscaino*, (valeria.boscaino@unipa.it) Filippo Pellitteri*, (filippo.pellitteri@hotmail.it) Roberto La Rosa** (roberto.larosa@st.com) Giuseppe Capponi* (giuseppe.capponi@unipa.it)

* University of Palermo, Department of Electrical, Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering (DIEET), viale delle scienze, building 9, 90128 Palermo, ITALY. ** ST Microelectronics, Systems Lab Technical Marketing Group, Stradale Primosole, 50, 95121 Catania, ITALY.

Contact author: Dr. Valeria Boscaino, E-mail: valeria.boscaino@unipa.it; Phone: 0039.09123860272; Fax: 0039091488452.

Recently, wireless power transfer has received a great deal of attention. Automotive and portable devices are only a few fields of application. Actually, wireless power transfer is mainly based on magnetic coupling. A power transmitter, also known as magnetic pad, is magnetically coupled with the power receiver which is integrated in the load device. If compared with wired chargers, great advantages are brought by wireless charging. Batteries could be easily charged by only placing the device on the pad without the need of bulky chargers. Further, multiple devices could be simultaneously charged by a single pad not requiring multiple chargers and plugs. An international standard was built by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) to achieve the complete interoperability between chargers and devices [1]. Nevertheless, a wireless battery charger still provokes some criticism with respect to efficiency, mainly due to power losses in magnetic coupling. In literature, available data on the maximum energy efficiency including or neglecting the magnetic coupling are reported. In the last few years, researchers have focused their own activity on the design of magnetic components for wireless power transfer [2-5]. Including the magnetic coupling, a 70% transfer efficiency is achieved by the most advanced solution. So far, high-quality components only add a few percentage points more. Yet, academic and industrial research is now focused on efficiency-related issues in the power receiver section only. The receiver efficiency is evaluated between the AC signal out of the resonant tank in the receiver section and the power load which is the rechargeable battery. Therefore, if the receiver efficiency is considered, magnetic losses will be neglected. In the receiver section, a 91% efficiency is achieved by traditional architectures [6-7]. A 93% efficiency is actually achieved in the receiver section by the most advanced solution actually available on the market. In this paper, a high-efficiency standard-compliant wireless charger for Li-ion batteries is proposed. An efficient design of magnetic component will be presented. A power receiver architecture which heavily improves the system efficiency is proposed. If compared with the most efficient solution actually available on the market, 5% is gained thus achieving a 98% efficiency. Improving the receiver efficiency speeds up the total efficiency from 70% to 75%. Simulation and experimental results will be shown to test the efficiency of the proposed architecture. The wireless transfer is usually obtained by a resonant tank including both the power transmitter and the power receiver coupled inductors. In the power transmitter a resonant half-bridge generates the AC signal which is transferred to the power receiver thanks to the inductive coupling. In the power receiver section, a full-wave rectifier is fed by the resonant circuit to obtain the required DC level for battery charging. The required load power level is transmitted from the power receiver to the power transmitter by the means of a communication link. Information about the battery health and state of charge are also exchanged. The communication link is implemented by modulating the AC signal. Information on the battery state of charge are coded according to the actual WPC standard. Each bit is transferred by modulating the secondary winding current. In the power transmitter, the primary winding current is monitored and the signal is demodulated. WPC standard allows designers to freely choice among different modulation techniques. Two common schemes are resistive and capacitive modulation. Both modulation schemes act on the resonance curve to implement a communication link from the power receiver to the power transmitter. In the resistive method, the effective load current of the resonant tank is modulated by the series connection of a resistor and an active switch. In the capacitive method, the resonance frequency is modulated by the series connection of a capacitor and an active switch on the power receiver side. The here proposed solution provides a capacitive modulation to improve the system efficiency. The traditional and the proposed architectures of the wireless battery charger are shown in Fig. 1.a) and 1.b), respectively. In the power receiver section, power losses are mainly due to the rectifier section. In traditional wireless chargers, a full-wave diode rectifier is used to achieve 91% efficiency between the secondary coil section and the effective load which is the rechargeable battery. Advanced solutions achieve 93% efficiency. In the proposed solution, diodes are definitively avoided and only active switches are involved. Indeed, the ratio between load power and secondary coil power has gone from about 91% to about 98% when capacitive switches are open, and from about 90% to about 97% when capacitive switches are closed. The total efficiency is boosted to 75%. The solution is standard-compliant, too. The system is modeled in Spice simulation environment. Magnetic coupling is modeled by L1 and L2 coupled inductors. In the power

transmitter section, the resonant circuit is driven by a half-bridge converter supplied by a 19V DC bus. Pulse frequency modulation control is implemented as suggested by the WPC standard. In the power receiver, the output signal of the resonant tank is rectified. A 7V DC bus is obtained out of the rectifier network.

Fig.1.a) Traditional architecture of a wireless battery charger

Fig.1.b): Proposed architecture of the wireless charger.

Capacitive modulation technique is implemented by capacitors Cmod1 and Cmod2 which are connected in series with M1 and M2 MOSFETs. If a 1 logical bit is transmitted, active switches will be switched-on by the polarization network and capacitors will load the resonant circuit. If a 0 logical bit is transmitted, active switches will be turned-off by the polarization network and the capacitor will not be included in the resonant circuit. In the traditional solution, as shown in Fig 1.a), the full-wave rectifier is implemented by Schottky diodes and the polarization circuit is implemented by two BJTs (Q1 and Q2) and two 4.7k polarization resistors. If Q2 is driven into the interdiction status by the modulation signal Vmod, Q1 will be turned-off and a 0 logical bit will be transmitted. If Q2 is driven into conduction by the modulation signal Vmod, Q1 will be turned-on and a 1 logical bit will be transmitted. The traditional solution features very poor efficiencies of the power receiver section. As shown in Fig. 1.b), in the proposed solution diodes are definitively avoided and replaced by active switches. Low Rds,on and proper driving allows the designer to push the efficiency target beyond the 93% limit, achieving a 98% efficiency in the power receiver section. A four-MOSFETs active rectifier topology is implemented by M3-M4 PMOS and M5-M6 NMOS. The input differential signal between +br and br terminals drives the MOS rectifier circuit. M3 PMOS gate terminal is connected to M6 drain terminal and the gate terminal of the M4 PMOS is connected to the drain terminal of the NMOS M5. Then, M3 and M4 are selfdriven components. M5 and M6 are instead driven by an external circuit which is fed by bridge input terminals and involves a driver and a comparator. The proposed topology is self-driven meaning that no external signal is used for MOSFET driving. The polarization circuit for the modulation branch is made up of active switches too. Yet, NMOS are now driven by the external modulation signal. In the worst-case, a maximum of 64mW power loss is obtained neglecting magnetic losses: 11mW by each MOSFET, 1mW by comparators, 12mW by drivers and 7mW by the modulation network. A power loss of 276mW is obtained by the traditional architecture under equal working conditions. Implemented solution enhances efficiency up to seven percentage points. A detailed analysis of the proposed solution will be presented in the final paper. Design criteria, simulation and experimental results will be presented as well. A prototype of a 2.5W wireless charger for cellular phones is realized. The traditional solution features low parts count and low-cost components although achievable efficiency is relatively poor. In the proposed solution, further components are required to correctly drive the power MOSFETs. Yet, the efficiency is pushed up to 98% in the power receiver section. The total conversion efficiency is boosted up to 75%. The capacitive modulation branch is driven by a high efficiency polarization circuit. The polarization network involves active switches only as well as the rectifier section. The analysis of the system efficiency has been carried out. Simulation and experimental results will be presented to show the efficiency of the proposed solution.
References [1] Wireless Power Consortium, System description wireless power transfer Vol.1, Part I, II and III. [2] W. X. Zhong, X. Liu and S. Y. Ron Hui, A Novel Single-Layer Winding Array and Receiver Coil Structure for Contactless Battery Charging Systems With Free-Positioning and Localized Charging Features, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 58, no. 9, September 2011, Page(s): 4136 - 4144. [3] X. Liu and S. Y. Ron Hui, Simulation Study and Experimental Verification of a Universal Contactless Battery Charging Platform With Localized Charging Features, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 22, no. 6, November 2007, Page(s): 2202 - 2210. [4] C. Panchal and J. Lu, High Frequency Planar Transformer (HFPT) for Universal Contact-Less Battery Charging Platform, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, vol. 47, no. 10, October 2011, Page(s): 2764 - 2767. [5] X. Z. Jian and H. Z. Yu, A Novel Wireless Charging System for Movable Telephone with Printed-circuit-board Windings of Different Structure and Shape Respectively, Proceeding of International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems 2007, October 8-11, Seoul, Korea, Page(s): 1283 - 1285. [6] P. Wambsganss and D. Huwig, Inductive Power Transmission System with Stabilized Output Voltage using Local Primary and Secondary-Side Control, 14th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference, EPE-PEMC 2010, Page(s): S15-1 - S15-8. [7] J. W. Hsu, A. P. Hu and A. Swain, Wireless Power Pickup Based on Directional Tuning Control of Magnetic Amplifier, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 56, no. 7, July 2009, Page(s): 2771 - 2781.