A Framework for Code Division Multiple Access Wireless Power Transfer

The availability of energy is one of the major hindrances to unlocking the massive potential of electronic devices. Powering a highly connected network of devices requires multiple access and a wireless power transfer (WPT) solution that is scalable and capable of maintaining a constant power flow regardless of reconfiguration (mutability) and electromagnetic environment (power flow selectivity). In this paper, we present a framework for the implementation of code division multiple access wireless power transfer (CDMA-WPT) for enabling WPT among multiple transmitters and multiple receivers simultaneously. CDMA-WPT maintains power flow selectivity and is easily scalable. An inverter/rectifier topology is presented for the hardware implementation of CDMA-WPT. A design process for practical co-design of high-performance hardware and obtaining a code set is also presented. We demonstrate the hardware implementation of CDMA-WPT using two transmitters and two receivers maintaining a nearly constant 5W operation with nearly 75% dc-dc efficiency, and four transmitters and four receivers maintaining a constant 4W operating with greater than 70% dc-dc efficiency. This paper is accompanied by a video hardware demonstration in real-time the difference between using orthogonal codes in CDMA versus conventional single-frequency WPT using 4 transmitter-receiver pairs; conventional single-frequency WPT shows up to a 82% deviation from the intended transfer power as opposed to 8.1% for orthogonal codes in CDMA.