2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

Long Slot Array for Wireless Power Transmission

Mauro Ettorre1 , Waleed A. Alomar2 , Anthony Grbic3
1 Institute
of Electronics and Telecommunications of Rennes (IETR), UMR CNRS 6164,
University of Rennes 1, 35042, Rennes, France, mauro.ettorre@univ-rennes1.fr
2 Communication and Information Technology Research Institute (CITRI), KACST, Saudi Arabia
3 Radiation Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,

and the Center of Photonic and Multiscale Materials (C-PHOM), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122, USA

Abstract—Retrodirective antennas used for radiative wireless

power transfer (WPT) are typically resonant and exhibit strong
backscatter, a limited field of view and small bandwidth. These
limitations are here overcome by using an array of long slots fed
by parallel plate waveguides (PPWs). It is shown that the array
can collect the total power impinging from a remote source over
a large field of view and bandwidth. The conclusions arrived
at for the infinite case are extended to the finite case through
full-wave simulations.
Index Terms—Wireless power transfer, retrodirective antennas,
wideband arrays.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Wireless power transmission is going to provide an unteth-
ered truly mobile experience [1]. In the near future, smart Fig. 1. Infinite array of long slots fed by PPW lines. The grey parts are
wireless power transfer systems will automatically transfer perfect electric conductors.
power to electronic devices in need of energy. Wireless power
systems are based on reactive (non-resonant or resonant)
near-field coupling and far-field electromagnetic interaction II. I NFINITE ARRAY OF LONG SLOTS
[1]. Far-field radiative WPT systems use either directive or
The proposed long slot array is shown in Fig. 1. Infinitely
omnidirectional antennas to maintain the power link [2]. In
long slots are fed by PPW transmission lines filled with a
these systems, the power is radiated and received by antennas
dielectric of permittivity ǫr1 . The analysis of the array in
placed in their respective far field. However, far-field wireless
reception is done by following steps similar to those outlined
power transfer systems require tracking of the mobile user
in [5]. These steps are reported along the E-plane: the critical
when highly-directive antennas are used to transmit power.
plane of the array [5].
Retrodirective antennas can overcome such limitations [3],
Let’s consider a Transverse Magnetic (TM) plane wave
[4]. For example, the rechargeable device can emit a beacon
impinging on the array at an angle (θ0 , φ0 = 0). The tangential
signal that is collected by the retrodirective antenna of the
electric and magnetic fields can be expressed as:
transmitting WPT unit. The retrodirective antenna can then
retransmit an amplified signal to power the mobile device [3], TM
Y00
[4]. The retrodirective antennas proposed to date for WPT Hi = − √ e−jkx0 x ŷ, (1)
d
systems are generally based on arrays of resonant dipoles. 1
These arrays backscatter a significant fraction of the incom- Ei = − √ e−jkx0 x x̂, (2)
d
ing energy degrading the performance of the WPT system.
They also exhibits blind spots [3] for which the mobile user where kx0 = −k0 sin θ0 ispthe transverse propagation constant
TM
could not be tracked by the powering transmitting unit. To along x, Y00 = k0 /(η0 k02 − kx0
2 ) is the admittance of the

overcome these limitations, we propose an array of long slots plane wave, with k0 and η0 the wavenumber and impedance
fed by PPW feed lines as an efficient retrodirective antenna. of free space.
A Green’s function spectral approach is used to prove that The transmitted magnetic field in the region z < 0 can be
the proposed solution can completely collect the impinging expressed in terms of modes supported by the PPW feed lines
energy over a large field of view and bandwidth. Full-wave as [5]:
simulations are used to validate these conclusions for the finite +∞  √
νm YmT M T M
X   mπ 
array case. Ht = − √ Vm cos x ŷ, (3)
m=0
a a

/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 889

 2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

whereqνm = 1 for m = 0 and νm = 2 for m 6= 0; YmT M = III. F INITE ARRAY OF LONG SLOTS
2 2 ) is the modal admittance and k
k/(η k 2 − (mπ/a) − ky0 A finite array with 16 slots is considered to confirm the re-
and η are the wavenumber and the wave impedance of the sults of the infinite case. The Radar Cross Section (RCS) of the
medium in the PPW. antenna is compared to the one of a full metallic plate with size
The scattered field in the region z > 0 can be derived using equal to the antenna’s radiating aperture (36.32 × 26.1 cm2 )
an equivalent approach as in [5] yielding: [6]. Fig. 3 shows the RCS of the antenna normalized to that
of the metallic plate. Even in the finite case, the array does
+∞  √
νm

1 X not scatter over a large bandwidth and angular field of view.
Hys = √ VmT M
d m=0 a Therefore, the proposed antenna can drastically improve the
+∞
(4) receiving performance of retrodirective arrays used for WPT
applications [3].
X
Λm (kxn )G̃HM
yy (kxn , 0)e
−jkxn x
,
n=−∞

where kxn = kx0 − 2πn/d, G̃HM yy denotes the Fourier

transform of the (y, y)-th element of GHM dyadic Green’s
function of free space. The auxiliary functions Λm (kx ) are
given in [5] and not reported here for brevity. The unknown
coefficients VmT M can be found by imposing the continuity of
the tangential component of the magnetic field over the slot
at x = a/2 (refer to Fig. 1). Once the problem is solved, the
transmission and reflection coefficient can be derived as:
s
2Y0T M T M
T = TM
V0 , (5)
Y00 Fig. 3. Normalized RCS for a finite array of long slots.

M √
X 2 νm T M
Γ= √ Vm Λm (kx0 ) − 1.
m=0
a IV. C ONCLUSION
Full-wave simulations in Ansys HFSS have been used to
validate the derived transmission and reflection coefficients.
The array parameters are: d = 22.7 mm, slot width a =
22 mm, ǫr1 = 1 (refer to Fig. 1). Fig. 2 shows the trans-
mission coefficient over a 30% fractional bandwidth around
the operating frequency of f = 5.8 GHz [3]. The full-wave
results are in close agreement with those of (5). Fig. 2 clearly
shows that the array can collect the total impinging energy
(and therefore does not backscatter) even for extreme angles
of incidence.
(6)
Radiative WPT systems based on retrodirective arrays of
long slots have been proposed. In contrast to resonant ele-
ments (e.g. half wavelength dipoles), long slots exhibit large
bandwidth and wide angle operation. It is proven that the
array exhibits negligible back scattering over a wideband
and for incident angles close to grazing. In other words, a
retrodirective array of this type can collect and re-transmit
energy toward the user in an efficient manner. These features
are extremely appealing for WPT systems. A prototype is
under development and measurement results will be presented
at the conference.

R EFERENCES
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Fig. 2. Transmission coefficient for an infinite array of long slots.
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