| Description |
More than a century ago, in his labs in Colorado Springs and New York, Nikola Tesla started experimenting with wireless power transfer (WPT). His ideas were ahead of his time, but they fell into obscurity shortly after his death. Nowadays, WPT is no longer thought of as science fiction: neural prostheses, wearables, cellphones, and even electric vehicles can be powered through WPT. In its most common implementation, WPT leverages the magnetic coupling between resonant transmitter and receiver coils to exchange energy. Considerable work is devoted to the design and optimization of WPT antennas; efficiently transmitting the required amount of power can only be accomplished when the coil coupling is in the right range. In this work, we explore the use of spatial filters in WPT systems. Spatial filters are capable of controlling the harmonic content of an incident wave: subwavelength focal spots, perfect lensing, and diffractionless beams are some of their uses. In the first part of this dissertation, the focus is on the analysis and design of a compact negative permeability metamaterial slab. Compared to other works in the literature, this slab is an extremely small fraction of the wavelength, and works at a low operating frequency. Analysis and experimental validation demonstrate that the resulting metamaterial sample can be used in a 2-coil WPT system to achieve large range and efficiency enhancements. In the second part of this dissertation, the analysis and implementation of holographic screens is presented. A method to reduce the fabrication complexity of the desired holographic screen while maintaining the fidelity of the prescribed field distribution is presented. We demonstrate our method through the analysis, design, and experimental validation of a nondiffractive beam launcher with a Bessel field distribution. Finally, we utilize the analysis and methods presented in this work to design an antenna capable of prescribing a uniform field distribution. Because of this property, this WPT antenna is capable of transmitting near constant power with near constant efficiency to the target receiver load, without the need of an adaptive compensation system. |
