Design and optimization of circular and rectangular couplers for wireless power transfer: efficiency enhancement and human safety assessment

Wireless power transfer (WPT) has been considered an emerging technology for electric vehicle (EV) applications. In wireless power transfer (WPT), the design of coil assemblies, their geometries, and associated parameters play a crucial role. Circular and rectangular coils and coupler designs are the most preferred configurations for WPT. This paper has presented the computational modeling and efficient coil-coupler assembly design process for WPT using ANSYS Maxwell. Different types of coil-coupler assemblies have been designed, and their critical analysis has been presented for four types of designs: Type I, Type II, Type III, and Type IV for both the circular and rectangular geometries, keeping the dimensions of the ferrite coupler, copper coil, and air gap specification are uniform across the designs. The electromagnetic parameters of the coil assemblies are calculated, and their performances are analyzed to evaluate the power transfer efficiency ( $$\eta$$ ), and the best geometry has been identified. A safety analysis regarding the human body’s exposure to magnetic field leakage was also studied to analyze the performance and impact of the proposed design. The optimized coil and magnetic coupler designs are compared in terms of the coupling coefficient (k), deviation tolerance (z), mutual inductance (M), self-inductance (L), magnetic flux density (B), eddy current loss ( $$P_E$$ ), ohmic-loss shielding to EMF ( $$P_{cu}$$ ), core loss (Pc), and human safety from magnetic field leakage. The simulated results illustrate that the Type IV rectangular coil assembly provides a 4.78 kW power output with 96.9570% efficiency at 85kHz.