Effect of misaligned relay on output power and efficiency in wireless power transfer

In magnetic resonance-based wireless power transfer (WPT), any misalignment between resonators degrades the strength of the magnetic coupling, and the use of a relay does not always improve performance if it is misaligned with a transmitter or a receiver. It is therefore necessary to determine the proper activation of a relay depending on the degree of misalignment. In this paper, we analyze the effect of a misaligned relay on two important performance metrics in WPT, namely output power and efficiency. In particular, we derive the achievable output power and efficiency with optimal load resistance based on an equivalent circuit model, and determine whether it is beneficial to utilize the relay for a given lateral and angular misalignment. By simulation and experimental verifications under various environments, we validate the exactness of our analysis, and we also confirm two interesting observations, namely 1) with regard to performance improvement in terms of output power and efficiency, it is better to deactivate the relay if it is seriously misaligned with the other resonators and 2) output power is more vulnerable to the misalignment of a relay than efficiency.