On June 1-4, 2021, virtual attendees gathered for the IEEE Wireless Power Week 2021, co-sponsored by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) and Power Electronics Society (PELS).
Wireless Power Week 2021 included the IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference (WPTC), the IEEE Workshop on Wireless Power (WoW), and the Wireless Power Transfer School.
Wireless Power Week 2021 is the largest wireless power event in the world, featuring the world’s most knowledgeable wireless power experts. This year, the event attracted a record-breaking 2,500+ participants and included 9 industry sponsors, 9 keynote speeches, a full-day of WPT School, and 9 technical sessions with 85 papers presented. The entire conference was delivered online using the Whova virtual conference platform.
Morris Kesler, Chief Technology officer at WiTricity Corporation, delivered a keynote presentation about wireless charging for electric vehicles. He observed that the record participant numbers of WPW this year reflect a growing interest in wireless power technologies for a broad range of applications. “Clearly, the industry is not satisfied with the status quo,” he stated.
Brief Highlights from WPW
Sanjay Gupta, President of AirFuel Alliance, says, “The wireless power community has moved on to high frequency systems. The primary technologies the community is working on include Magnetic Resonance coupling based WPT at 6.78 and 13.56, capacitive coupling, and electric vehicles.”
Of the many presentations on wireless charging research shared at this year’s Wireless Power Week, one that stuck out to Dr. Gupta as a game changer for the industry was the presentation by Lei Gu and Juan Rivas-Davila of Stanford University on achieving 95.7% efficiency of wireless power transfer of 1.7kW in a 6.78 MHz system. 6.78 MHz is the frequency that AirFuel Alliance uses for its high frequency technology, and achieving those levels of efficiency bode well for the increasing adoption of this next-generation technology.
Another session of note was on Biomedical Applications by Souvik Dubey of Abbott Laboratories and Aasrith Ganti of Whoop Inc. They presented on the various applications of wireless power in the medical field, further proving wireless charging as a technology that we will see more and more in medical applications.
Dr. Gupta also noted that radio frequency (RF) technology is maturing, and components to improve wireless charging efficiency are under development, including rectifiers and antennas.
Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion (EPC), delivered a presentation about the rapid progression in magnetic resonance over the past 12 months. Lidow said, “Several WPW participants made the point that the world has eliminated all cables except the power cord, and now is the time for that to go. In my keynote, we showed a dual-mode system that worked at 80% efficiency for the AirFuel compatible system, and at 75% efficiency for the embedded Qi system. The AirFuel-compatible system powered multiple loads up to a total of 80W.” This solution is able to utilize both first-generation charging like inductive, and next-generation technology such as magnetic resonance. This dual-mode functionality can make the adoption of new technology more accessible to the market.
Paul Wiener, Vice President of Strategic Marketing at GaN Systems, presented a session called “Analysis and Benefits of GaN in High Frequency Applications.” He said, “I always look forward to participating in this conference to see the continuous innovation happening in wireless power transfer. I also like to share our experiences in the market and demonstrate how companies are using our GaN technology to get better performance from their systems. This year, it was interesting to see an abundance of high power systems with larger ‘transmit to receive’ air gaps.”
Wireless Power Week 2021 was co-sponsored financially by IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) and the Power Electronics Society (PELS). The conference was technically co-sponsored by MTT-S, PELS and Antenna Propagation Society (APS). Platinum sponsors included Energous, WiTricity and Momentum Wireless Power.
Chris Mi, Ph.D, WPW Organizing Committee Chair and Professor at San Diego State University, shared the future plan for the event, “Wireless Power 2021 was a tremendous success, and we appreciate the support of our sponsors, presenters, and everyone who attended virtually. WPW 2022 will be held in Bordeaux, France from July 4-8, 2022. In 2023, the world’s largest wireless power conference will return to San Diego from June 7-10, and will be unified under the name Wireless Power Conference and Expo.”
If you missed this year’s conference, you can access the session recordings on their YouTube playlist.
To explore the wide range of wireless power expertise from the event, visit the Wireless Power Week website here: http://wpw2021.org/.
Here at AirFuel Alliance, we’ll be covering all things wireless power in more depth on our blog and in our webinars, so stay tuned for updates.
Get Involved
Want to play a key role in shaping the wireless power industry and growing the global marketplace? Join the AirFuel Alliance, and be part of an ecosystem that includes some of the biggest names in consumer electronics and mobile technology.
Contact us to discuss membership
For media inquiries, please contact Trish Thomas at press@airfuel.org.