Passive control strategy of inductive power transfer to microimplants based on ferroelectric dielectrics

Abstract In this study, a passive control strategy of inductive power transfer (IPT) using ferroelectric multilayer ceramic chip capacitors (MLCCs) is presented. The required system parameters, i.e., ferroelectric hysteresis, frequency of the IPT, and voltage range across the MLCCs are reported. The receiver circuit consists only of a parallel resonant circuit, a halfwave rectifier and a load; the passive control of the IPT is achieved exclusively by the nonlinear properties of the ferroelectric MLCCs. The stabilization of the secondary output voltage ULoad at constant load is experimentally evaluated for an inductive coupling factor k between 10 % and 30 % for three nonlinear MLCCs #1, #2 and #3. With our proposed passive control strategy ULoad is maintained at -1.2 % and +0.6 % around a median value of 17.3 V (17.1 - 17.4 V) for k ∈ [20 %, 30 %] using MLCC #1, ±0.9 % around a median value of 11.2 V (11.1 - 11.3 V) for k ∈ [10 %, 18 %] using MLCC #2, and -1.6% and +2.6 % around a median value of 5.03 V (4.95 - 5.16 V) for k ∈ [16 %, 30 %] using MLCC #3. The proposed control principle is particularly advantageous for highly miniaturized microimplants, as it allows IPT control without additional semiconductors, sensors and vulnerable communication channels.