As a non-contact power supply method, wireless power transfer (WPT) technology is widely used in medical, automotive, and cellular devices because of its reliability, safety, and high degree of freedom. However, the parameter drift phenomenon of the coupler inevitably occurs in practical applications, which leads to the fluctuation of self-inductance and makes the WPT system suffer from frequency detuning. Thus, its transmission characteristics and stability are affected. Traditional bilateral frequency tuning methods are non-uniform because of the type of topology, and some require communication equipment and complex optimization of control parameters. This paper proposes a unified decoupling control strategy of frequency tuning for high-order compensated WPT systems.

Four T-type higher-order compensation networks of LCC/LCC, LCC/S, CLC/CLC, and CLC/S are analyzed as examples. Based on the impedance model, the bilateral resonance characteristics of the primary-side LCC-compensated WPT system and the primary-side CLC-compensated WPT system are deduced. If the primary side is in a resonant state, the RMS value of the input current will reach the minimum. If the secondary side is in a resonant state, the RMS value of the current will reach the maximum. Finally, the generalized criterion is obtained for bilateral tuning decoupling control of higher-order compensated WPT systems.

This paper proposes a control strategy to realize the bilateral tuning decoupling control without communication or parameter identification. Instead of the inherent compensation capacitance, the switched capacitor converter (SCC) structure is used, and the equivalent capacitance of the SCC is varied by changing the conduction angle of the control signal. Based on the generalized tuning criterion, the conduction angle of the SCC control signal is changed with the help of the double-step perturbation observation method, and the primary and secondary currents are searched until the minimum value of the primary input current and the maximum value of the secondary coil current. Therefore, the WPT system reaches the resonant state while the conduction angle is optimal. The primary and secondary resonance parameters are realized independently and adaptively, and the bilateral tuning and decoupling control is achieved.

Finally, an experimental prototype of a 180 W LCC/LCC WPT system is built. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed generalized tuning decoupling control strategy. The results show that the method can effectively suppress the frequency detuning problem caused by the parameter drift of the coupler and the self-inductance fluctuation, improving the transmission efficiency and stability of the WPT system. In addition, the proposed method is applicable to the high-order WPT system with a π-type compensation network.