Power Electronics Prize Letter Award

2021 Power Electronics Prize Letter Award at ECCE 2022
Award
Author
Published

October 12, 2022

Lei Gu, Francis Chen and Prof. Juan Rivas at the award ceremony

L. Gu, G. Zulauf, A. Stein, P. A. Kyaw, T. Chen and J. M. R. Davila, “6.78-MHz Wireless Power Transfer With Self-Resonant Coils at 95% DC–DC Efficiency,” in IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 2456-2460, March 2021, doi: 10.1109/TPEL.2020.3014042.

Abstract

Megahertz-frequency inductive wireless power transfer holds the promise of compact and efficient wireless power transfer. Unfortunately, due to high-frequency losses in wide-bandgap semiconductors and low-Q high-frequency coil designs, these systems are universally less efficient, on a dc–dc basis, than wireless power systems operating at conventional frequency regimes. This letter describes the design considerations for inductive wireless power transfer systems operating at 6.78 MHz. With a novel high-frequency resonant amplifier topology, a high-Q self-resonant coil structure, and a better understanding of Coss losses in wide-bandgap power semiconductors, we demonstrate 6.78-MHz wireless power transfer systems that achieve 95% dc–dc efficiency at power levels up to and beyond 1 kW.