EMI Reduction in Wireless Power Transfer System
Using Spread Spectrum Frequency Dithering
Hongseok Kim, Jonghoon Kim, Seungtaek Jeong, Seongsoo Lee, Yeonje Cho, Dong-Hyun Kim, and Joungho Kim
TeraByte Interconnection and Package Laboratory, School of Electrical Engineering
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Email: hongseok.kaist@gmail.com
Abstract—This paper presents the use of spread spectrum
technique to reduce electromagnetic interference caused by fast
switching transitions of a resonant inverter and rectifier used
for wireless power transfer (WPT) systems. We investigate the
magnetic field emission from a series-resonant WPT system
having the resonance frequency of 20 kHz in a frequency band
from 9 kHz to 150 kHz. The averaging spectral estimate (Welch’s
Periodogram) of the simulated leakage magnetic field shows that
a harmonic peak can be reduced up to 8.7 dB by dithering the
switching frequency with a triangular modulation profile.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The wireless power transfer (WPT) technology has been
actively researched and developed in recent years. The im-
portant thing we notice in previous studies is that the use of
switch-mode power conversion using an inverter and rectifier
is essential for efficient power transmission through magnetic
coupling. What is important in this observation is that the fast
switching transitions of the inverter and rectifier generate un-
wanted harmonic voltages which may cause unwanted electro-
magnetic interference (EMI) as well as unwanted harmonic
currents. Despite the bandpass-filtering effect of the resonant
tank in WPT system, it is hard to eliminate harmonic currents
and the corresponding electromagnetic emission. Nevertheless,
little attention has been given to the electromagnetic emission
by WPT system.
In many WPT applications, specialized magnetic shielding
structures are often used as a basic measure to reduce magnetic
field emission. However, the passive shielding technique has its
limits due to the finite values of permeability and conductivity
and design requirements such as size, weight and cost. The
possible way to overcome these limits is to mitigate the
harmonic noise at its source. One of the common techniques
to do so is a frequency modulation technique called as spread
spectrum frequency dithering (SSFD), in which the switching
frequency is modulated according to a certain profile as shown
in Fig. 1(a) or randomly generated sequence within a specified
range. With SSFD, the resulting power spectral density (PSD)
of harmonic noise as well as fundamental is spread over a
wider range of frequency, thereby having the reduced peak
values as shown in Fig. 1(b).
In this paper, we present the use of SSFD for a 1-kW-
class WPT system having resonance frequency of 20 kHz. We
also quantify the effect of SSFD on the PSD of its magnetic
field noise. In particular, we investigate the magnetic field
emission in a frequency band from 9 kHz to 150 kHz covering
978-1-4673-7986-1/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
up to 7th harmonics of the resonance frequency of the WPT
system, because almost 95% of energy of the square wave is
concentrated in this frequency range.
II. S PREAD S PECTRUM F REQUENCY D ITHERING U SING
F REQUENCY M ODULATION
The fundamentals of SSFD by frequency modulation can
be explored using classical frequency-modulation (FM) theory
for radio communication as detailed in [1]. The effect of
frequency modulation on each individual harmonic of a square
wave can be derived from the classical FM theory dealing
with a sinusoidal wave modulated with the desired modulation
profile [2]. The general analytical expression of a frequency
modulated sinusoidal wave is
F (t) = Ac · cos (2πfc · t + θ(t)) (1)
where Ac is the amplitude of the unmodulated signal, fc is the
carrier frequency and θ(t) is the time dependent phase angle
defined as
Z t
θ(t) = kω · υm (τ ) · dτ (2)
0
where kw is the factor controlling the maximum frequency
deviation, υm (τ ) is the function representing a certain modu-
lation profile.
The instantaneous frequency of F (t) is affected by the
frequency of a modulation profile fm , and the amplitude of
a modulation profile Am and the proportionality constant kw .
The frequency modulation index mf is defined as
kw Am ∆f
mf = = (3)
fm fm
where ∆f is the maximum frequency deviation, determining
the bandwidth (BW) over which the signal energy is spread.
According to Carson’s rule, 98% of the energy of carrier
frequency component is spread into a BW. The general BW
considering nth harmonics is given by
BWn = 2 · fm (1 + n · mf ) = 2 · (fm + n · ∆f ) (4)
Fig. 1 shows a triangular modulation profile and com-
parison of PSDs between square waves with fixed frequency
of 20.15 kHz and modulated frequency using the triangular
modulation profile (fc = 20.35 kHz, ∆f = 200 Hz, fm = 1/Tm
= 200 Hz, and the dwell time tdwell = 100 µs). The PSDs were
calculated from square waves sampled at 10 MHz for 100-ms
duration using Welch’s method. The major parameters for the
 +∆ Winding area
Ferrite
Aluminum
Frequency

−∆

290 mm
245 mm
0 /2
Time
PSD, Reference 50 ohm, RBW 200 Hz
(a)
0
78 mm
Power Spectral Density (dBm/Hz)

Unmodulated
Modulated
-20
∆ = 1.5 dB

18 mm
5 mm
∆ = 6.3 dB 155 mm
-40 ∆ = 5.8 dB
∆ = 8.3 dB
< Coil Structure > < Isometric View >
-60
Fig. 2. The circular coil model taken from [4]; the geometry and dimensions
-80 of the Tx and Rx coils are identical. Each winding is composed of 3 layers
and 13 turns per layer. The relative permeability and the magnetic loss tangent
-100
of the ferrite shield, which is 4 mm thick, are 3200 and 0.006, respectively,
9 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 150 and the conductivity of the aluminum shield, which is 1 mm thick, is 33.9
Frequency (kHz, linear scale) MS/m. There are a 1-mm gap between the ferrite shield and winding, and a
(b) 156-mm air gap between Tx and Rx coils.

Fig. 1. Comparison between the modulated and unmodulated square wave

in the frequency domain, (a) Triangular modulation profile, (b) PSDs of + +
square waves with the fixed frequency of 20.15 kHz and with the triangular
modulation (fc = 20.35 kHz, ∆f = 200 Hz, fm = 1/Tm = 200 Hz, and

Rectifier
Inverter
tdwell = 100 µs).

calculation include the hamming window (N = 68140 and 50% − −

overlap), 200-Hz effective noise bandwidth (ENBW), the same
length of FFT as that of the window and 50-ohm reference Fig. 3. Block diagram of a series-resonant loosely-coupled WPT system
load. The 200-Hz ENBW was selected by considering the employing the class-D full-bridge inverter and rectifier. The waveforms of the
inverter output voltage VTx and the rectifier input voltage VRx are almost the
preferred 6-dB BW of the intermediate frequency filter of EMI same as the square wave containing the large amount of odd harmonics.
receivers for the CISPR band-A [3]. We see from Fig. 1(b) that
the harmonic peak values can be reduced up to 8.3 dB in this TABLE I. C IRCUITAL PARAMETERS
frequency range.
Parameter Value Parameter Value
R1 = R2 90 mΩ VL 150 V
III. W IRELESS P OWER T RANSFER S YSTEM AND L1 = L2 682 µH RL 22.5 Ω
S IMULATION R ESULTS M 98 µH Cf 680 µF × 4
C1 = C2 92.85 nF fr 20 kHz
The coil and circuit models of a high-power WPT system
and the simulation results using the models are presented in
this section to evaluate the effects of SSFD on the magnetic
field emission from a WPT system. resistance RL presented in Table I imply that the required load
power is exactly 1 kW. As presented in [4] and Fig. 5(b) in the
next section, the harmonic currents and resultant magnetic field
A. 1-kW-class Automotive Wireless Charging System emission are not eliminated although the magnetic shields are
Fig. 2 shows a circular coil model taken from [4]. It employed and the coils are designed to minimize the current
was designed for a 1-kW-class wireless charging system for harmonics.
an electric vehicle. The ferrite and aluminum shields are
employed to suppress the magnetic field leakage. This coil B. Simulation Results
model are used to evaluate the magnetic field spectra of the
WPT system. The circuit and field simulations were conducted to quan-
tify the effects of SSFD on the magnetic field emission by the
Fig. 3 and Table I show a block diagram of a series- WPT system. In the circuit simulation, we utilized the same
resonant loosely-coupled WPT system and its circuital pa- parameters for the modulation as used in Fig. 1(b) except the
rameters, respectively. These are also the excerpts from [4]. dc input voltage Vdc . To transfer the 1-kW average power to the
The coil resistances (R1 and R2 ) and the coil inductances load, Vdc is set to be 103 V without the modulation and 103.7
(L1 and L2 ) have the identical values, because Tx and Rx V with the modulation, respectively. Due to the resonant tank
coils are identical as shown in Fig. 2. The coils are tuned to dynamics, large variations in voltage and current can be caused
the resonance frequency fr = 20 kHz using series-connected by the use of SSFD, which can generate audible vibration.
capacitors. The values of the load voltage VL and the load Thus, the amplitude modulation index, given below, needs to
 20.55 z
Frequency (kHz)

20.45

20.35

20.25

20.15 P
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 (600 mm, 112 mm)
Time (ms) r
(a) (a)
20
, ,
Unmodulated

Normalized PSD of B Field (dB)

15 0
Modulated
Tx Coil Current (A)

10 ∆ = 1.9 dB
-20
5

0
-40
-5
∆ = 8.7 dB
-10 -60 ∆ = 4.4 dB
∆ = 5.6 dB
-15
-80
-20
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
9 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 150
Time (ms)
Frequency (kHz, linear scale)
(b)
(b)
20

15 Fig. 5. Comparison of the magnetic field emission from the WPT system
, ,
transferring 1-kW power to the load with and without the triangular modula-
Rx Coil Current (A)

10
tion, (a) The observation point of the magnetic fields, (b) The normalized PSDs
5
(ENBW = 200 Hz) of the magnetic fields observed at the point P indicated
0 in (a).
-5

-10

-15
-20
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time (ms)
(c)
Fig. 4. Simulation Results of the WPT system with SSFD, (a) The triangular
modulation waveform, (b) Tx coil current ITx (%ma = 1.1%), (c) Rx coil
current IRx (%ma = 1.5%).
be evaluated [1].
Imax − Imin
%ma = × 100%
Imax + Imin
where Imax and Imin are the maximum and minimum values
of envelope of a current waveform.
The time-domain simulation results of the coil currents and
load voltage are presented in Fig. 4 for the modulated case
only. We see from Fig. 4(b) and Fig. 4(c) that the envelopes
of the coil currents almost stand still, and thus, the AM effects
by SSFD are negligible.
These waveforms of the coil currents are used to estimate
the magnetic field emission from the magnetically coupled
coils and the result is shown in Fig. 5. We simulated the mag-
netic field distributions using the FEM simulation tool, ANSYS
Maxwell, and estimated the PSDs at the field observation point,
P, indicated in Fig. 5(a). The normalized PSDs of the magnetic
fields appears in Fig. 5(b). We normalized the PSDs to the
maximum peak value in the PSD of the unmodulated case.
We see from this figure that the magnetic field emission can
be reduced up to 8.7 dB by applying SSFD with the triangular
modulation.
IV. C ONCLUSION
14 16 18 20
In this paper, we expanded the possible application of
SSFD to WPT systems. We investigated the magnetic field
emission from a 1-kW-class automotive series-resonant WPT
system tuned to 20 kHz for resonance. It is shown that the
triangular modulation profile with the small modulation index
(mf = 1) and modulation frequency (fm = ENBW) can be
used to achieve significant EMI reduction at the harmonic
frequencies below 150 kHz with negligible AM effects on
the coil currents. The simulation results show that 4.4–8.7 dB
reduction in the harmonic PSD can be achieved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
(5)
The authors would like to acknowledge the technical
support from ANSYS Korea (ANSYS, Inc.). This work was
supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea
(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No.
2010-0028680).
R EFERENCES
[1] L. E. Frenzel, Principles of Electronic Communication Systems, 4th ed.
2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016.
[2] J. Balcells, A. Santolaria, A. Orlandi, D. Gonzalez, and J. Gago, “EMI
Reduction in Switched Power Converters Using Frequency Modulation
Techniques,” IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 569–
576, Aug. 2005.
[3] CISPR16-1-1, Specification for Radio Disturbance and Immunity Mea-
suring Apparatus and Methods Part 1-1: Radio Disturbance and Im-
munity Measuring Apparatus-Measuring Apparatus. Switzerland: Int.
Electrotech. Commiss., 2007.
[4] H. Kim, C. Song, D.-H. Kim, D. H. Jung, I.-M. Kim, Y.-i. Kim, J. Kim,
S. Ahn, and J. Kim, “Coil design and measurements of automotive
magnetic resonant wireless charging system for high-efficiency and low
magnetic field leakage,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 64,
no. 2, pp. 1–18, Jan. 2016.