A #-shaped Auxiliary Coil Array for Location Detection in Inductive Power Transfer Systems

Inductive power transfer (IPT) has become popular in applications such as electric vehicles. However, the potential coil misalignment is one drawback of IPT system, which can cause power variations and efficiency reduction. In this article, the detection of the receiver coil location is realized with auxiliary coils. A #-shaped auxiliary coil array is formed by four helix coils. The helix coils can be decoupled from the transmitter coil, which reduces the interference and simplifies the design. In general, the design is advantageous for the simple implementation and low cost. Experimental results are provided to evaluate the basic concept of the proposed method.