Efficiency Enhancement for an Inductive Wireless Power Transfer System by Optimizing the Impedance Matching Networks

Inductive wireless power transfer (IWPT) is a promising power technology for implantable biomedical devices, where the power consumption is low and the efficiency is the most important consideration. In this paper, we propose an optimization method of impedance matching networks (IMN) to maximize the IWPT efficiency. The IMN at the load side is designed to achieve the optimal load, and the IMN at the source side is designed to deliver the required amount of power (no-more-no-less) from the power source to the load. The theoretical analyses and design procedure are given. An IWPT system for an implantable glaucoma therapeutic prototype is designed as an example. Compared with the efficiency of the resonant IWPT system, the efficiency of our optimized system increases with a factor of 1.73. Besides, the efficiency of our optimized IWPT system is 1.97 times higher than that of the IWPT system optimized by the traditional maximum power transfer method. All the discussions indicate that the optimization method proposed in this paper could achieve a high efficiency and long working time when the system is powered by a battery.