620 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 20, NO.

3, MAY 2005

A New Generation of Universal Contactless Battery

Charging Platform for Portable Consumer
Electronic Equipment
S. Y. R. Hui, Fellow, IEEE, and Wing. W. C. Ho, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This invention is related to a new planar inductive

battery charger for portable electronic equipment such as mobile
phones, palm pilots and CD players. New multilayer printed-cir-
cuit-board winding matrices of hexagonal structures that can gen-
erate magnetic flux of almost even magnitude over the surface of
the winding arrays have been developed. The new concept forms
the basis for a new generation of universal charging platform for
a wide range of portable electronic equipment. Different types of
portable electronic equipment can be placed and charged simulta- Fig. 1. Schematic of conventional battery charger with direct electrical
neously on the charging platform, regardless of their positions and connection.
orientation. The principle and structure of the charging platform
are explained and the feasibility has been confirmed with prac-
tical measurements. The proposed universal charging platform has
been successfully used for mobile phones, MP3 players and elec-
tronic dictionaries.
Index Terms—Battery chargers, planar transformers, printed-
circuit-board (PCB) windings.

I. INTRODUCTION

P ORTABLE electronic equipment such as mobile phones,

handheld computers, personal data assistants is normally
powered by batteries. In many cases, rechargeable batteries are
preferred because of environmental and economical concerns.
The most common way to charge rechargeable batteries is to
use a conventional charger, which normally consists of an ac–dc
power supply (in case of using the ac mains) or an dc–dc power
supply (in case of using a car battery). A conventional charger
uses a cord (electric cable for a physical electrical connection)
to connect the charger circuit (a power supply) to the battery lo-
cated in the portable electronic equipment. The basic schematic
of the conventional battery charger is shown in Fig. 1.
Inductive electronic chargers without direct physical elec-
trical connection have been developed in some portable elec-
tronic equipment such as electric toothbrushes and drills. Induc-
tive chargers have also been proposed [1]–[3]. These inductive
type chargers, however, use traditional transformer designs with
windings wound around ferrite magnetic cores. The main mag-
netic flux between the primary winding and secondary winding
has to go through the magnetic core materials (Fig. 2). Other
Manuscript received June 17, 2004; revised December 6, 2004. This work
was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council under Project CERG
CityU 1223/03E. Recommended by Associate Editor J. A. Ferreira.
S. Y. R. Hui is with the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (e-mail: eeronhui@cityu.edu.hk).
W. W. C. Ho was with the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China,
and is now with Artesyn Technologies Asia-Pacific Ltd., Hong Kong, China.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2005.846550
0885-8993/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
Fig. 2. Schematic of magnetic core-based transformers used in conventional
inductive battery charger system [4].
contactless charger [4] proposed also uses magnetic cores as the
main structure for the coupled transformer windings.
Planar magnetic components are attractive in portable elec-
tronic equipment applications such as the power supplies
and distributed power modules for notebook and handheld
computers. As the switching frequency of power converter
increases, the size of magnetic core can be reduced. When
the switching frequency is high enough (e.g., a few hundreds
of kilo-hertz), the magnetic core can be eliminated. Low-cost
coreless PCB transformers for signal and low-power (a few
Watts) applications have been proposed [5]–[16]. In power
transfer applications, the PCB transformers have to be shielded
to comply with EMC regulations. An investigation of planar
transformer shielded with ferrite sheets has been reported [14].
A similar shielding structure using ferrite only for planar in-
ductor has been demonstrated in [17]. However, it is practically
shown that using only thin ferrite materials for EMI shielding
[16] is not effective. The EM fields can penetrate the thin ferrite
sheets easily. Planar PCB transformer effectively shielded
with both thin ferrite plates and thin copper sheets has been
demonstrated [16].
Based on coreless PCB transformer technology, a contactless
charger using a single primary printed winding without any
EMI shield has been proposed in [18]. However, the magnetic
HUI AND HO: NEW GENERATION OF UNIVERSAL CONTACTLESS BATTERY CHARGING PLATFORM 621

Fig. 3. (a) Structure of a hexagonal spiral winding and (b) its simplified symbol
used in this paper.

flux distribution of a single spiral winding has a major problem

of nonuniform magnetic flux distribution. As illustrated with Fig. 4. (a) Two adjacent hexagonal spiral winding patterns and (b) the mmf
measurement later in this paper, the magnitude of the magnetic distribution along distance between X
and . Y
field in the center of the core of a spiral winging is highest
and decreases from the center. This means that if the portable
electronic device is not placed properly in the central region,
the charging effect is not effective. Without proper EMI shield,
undesirable induced currents may flow in other metallic parts
of the portable electronic equipment. In this new invention,
we propose a new method that overcomes this problem. More
importantly, the proposed charging system allows more than
one equipment to be charged simultaneously, regardless of
their orientations on the charging surface [19], [20].

II. MAGNETOMOTIVE FORCE (MMF) GENERATION

OF SPIRAL WINDINGS

In order to design a universal charging platform, it is neces-
sary to generate a uniform mmf distribution over a planar sur-
face. In this section, the mmf distribution of single layer planar
winding array is first addressed. Then the structure of the pro-
posed multilayer winding arrays is explained.
First consider a spiral winding arranged in a hexagonal shape
as shown in Fig. 3(a). For simplicity, it will be represented as a
hexagon as shown in Fig. 3(b). If a current passes through each
spiral winding pattern, a magnetomotive force (mmf), which is
equal to the product of the number of turns and current
(i.e., ), is generated. Fig. 4(a) shows two spiral winding
patterns adjacent to each other. The per-unit mmf plot over the
distance (dotted line) can be linearized as shown in Fig. 4(b).
It can be seen that the mmf distribution over the distance is not
uniform. The maximum mmf occurs in the center of the pattern
and the minimum mmf occurs in the edge of the pattern.
Now consider three adjacent patterns in Fig. 5. The maximum
mmf region is labeled by a symbol “P” (which stands for mmf
Peak). The minimum mmf region at the junction of two patterns
is labeled as “V” (which stands for mmf Valley). Note that each
Peak is surrounded by six Valleys and each Valley surrounded
by three Peaks.
III. UNIFORM MMF GENERATION BASED ON MULTILAYER
PCB WINDING ARRAYS
Many hexagonal spiral windings can be arranged as an array
as shown in Fig. 6. These windings can be connected in parallel,
in series or a combination of both to the electronic driving circuit
[19], [20]. In Fig. 6, only the mmf peaks (P) are labeled. It should
be noted there are six mmf valleys (V) surrounding each peak
at the six vertices of each hexagonal pattern.
Fig. 5. Peak (P) and valley (V) positions of the PCB winding pattern.
In order to generate a uniform mmf distribution over the
planar charging surface, two more layers of PCB winding
arrays should be added. This principle is explained firstly by
adding a second layer of PCB winding array to the first one as
shown in Fig. 7. The second layer is placed on the first one in
such a way that the peak mmf positions (P) of the patterns of
one layer is placed directly over the valley positions (V) of the
patterns in the other layer. Fig. 7 highlights the peak positions
of the patterns that are directly over the valley positions of
the other layer for the two overlapped PCB layers. It can be
observed from Fig. 7 that the use of two layers of PCB winding
arrays does not offer the optimal solution of generating uniform
mmf over the inductive charging surface. For each hexagonal
pattern in the two-layer structure, the peak positions occupy the
central position and three (out of six) vertices of each hexagon.
The remaining three vertices are valley positions (V) that
need to be filled by the third layer of PCB winding arrays. These
valley positions are shown in Fig. 7 as empty squares. Careful
examination of Fig. 7 shows there are six peak positions (P)
surrounding each valley position. Therefore, a third layer of
hexagonal PCB winding array can be used to fill up all these re-
maining valley positions. By placing the central positions (peak
mmf positions) of the hexagonal winding patterns of the third
layer of the PCB winding array over the remaining valley po-
sitions of the two-layer structure, an optimal three-layer struc-
ture is formed as shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 8 highlights the peak
mmf positions of the three-layer structure. It can be observed
that all central positions and vertices of all hexagonal patterns
have peak mmf.
622 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 20, NO. 3, MAY 2005

Fig. 6. Layer of hexagonal winding patterns (Each mmf peak “P” is surrounded by six valleys).

Fig. 7. Square with a “P” inside of it refers to peak mmf positions. Blank square refers to valley positions (to be filled by the peak positions of the third PCB
winding array) in the intermediate two-layer hexagonal-spiral PCB winding array structure.

In order to understand that the mmf over the surface has
uniform mmf distribution, one can consider any distance be-
tween any two adjacent peak mmf positions as illustrated in
Fig. 9. If the winding patterns are excited in the same manner
and polarity so that the mmf generated by each layer of the
winding array are always in the same direction at any moment,
the resultant mmf is simply the sum of the mmf generated by
each layer. Fig. 9 shows that the resultant mmf over the distance
between any two adjacent peak positions in Fig. 9 is equal
to 1.0 per unit. This indicates that the proposed three-layer
PCB winding array structure can be used to generate uniform
mmf over the inductive charging surface. When used as a
contactless, inductive charging surface, this uniform mmf dis-
tribution feature ensures that, for a given airgap, a secondary
PCB coupling winding can always couple the same amount
of magnetic flux regardless of the position of the secondary
(coupling) PCB on the inductive charging surface. In addition,
the voltage induced in the secondary winding would be the
same over the inductive charging surface. The four-layer PCB
winding array structure can be constructed in a three-layer
HUI AND HO: NEW GENERATION OF UNIVERSAL CONTACTLESS BATTERY CHARGING PLATFORM
Fig. 8. Structure of three-layer of hexagonal-spiral PCB winding arrays (with peak mmf positions highlighted with symbol P).
Fig. 9. Sum of mmf over distance, indicating the uniform mmf distribution of
the three-layer PCB winding array structure.
PCB, with one of the four layers accommodating the return
paths of the spiral windings to the electronic driving circuit.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
Special multi-layer PCB’s based on the hexagonal spiral
winding design (Fig. 8) have been made and tested. To confirm
that the theory of uniform mmf distribution is correct, the
multi-layer PCB winding structure has been tested by several
steps. For initial tests, the windings are connected in series and
are excited by a RF power amplifier in the frequency range
of 300 kHz–1 MHz. In later tests, a switched mode power
supply has been successfully designed for driving the charging
platform.
623
A. Evaluation of Magnetic Flux Distribution
1) Test 1: Excitation of Only One Layer of PCB Winding: In
this test, only one layer of the three PCB winding array structure
is excited at high-frequency. The PCB is placed on a Precision
EMC scanner so that the magnetic field of the PCB can be
measured. Fig. 10(a) shows the measured 2-D magnetic flux
distribution superimposed on a photograph of the PCB. The
magnitude of the mmf over the surface is plotted in Fig. 10(b).
As predicted, the magnitude of the mmf is highest (peak) in
the center of the hexagonal winding pattern. The presence of
peaks and valleys of mmf are confirmed.
2) Test 2: Excitation of Two Layers of PCB Windings: The
second test is conducted with two layers of PCB windings ex-
cited by the high-frequency ac voltage source. Fig. 11(a) shows
the measured 2-D magnetic flux distribution superimposed on
a photograph of the PCB. The magnitude of the mmf over the
surface is plotted in Fig. 11(b). As expected, half of the valleys
are now filled with mmf peaks by the additional layer.
3) Test 3: Excitation of Three Layers of PCB Windings: The
third test is conducted with three layers of PCB winding ar-
rays excited by the high-frequency ac voltage source. Fig. 12(a)
shows the measured 2-D magnetic flux distribution superim-
posed on a photograph of the PCB. The magnitude of the mmf
over the surface is plotted in Fig. 12(b). As expected, all the mmf
valleys are now filled with mmf peaks. These results show that
the proposed three-layer hexagonal winding array structure can
be used to generate a magnetic field with uniform magnitude
over the planar surface. This feature is essential for a universal
charging platform because this uniform mmf distribution en-
sures that the charged electronic equipment can be placed any-
where on the charging surface.
624 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 20, NO. 3, MAY 2005

(a) (b)
Fig. 10. (a) Measured mmf scan superimposed on the photograph of the PCB and (b) the magnitude plot of the mmf (for a one-layer hexagonal PCB winding
structure).

(a) (b)
Fig. 11. (a) Measured mmf scan superimposed on the photograph of the PCB and (b) the magnitude plot of the mmf (for a two-layer hexagonal PCB winding
structure).

(a) (b)
Fig. 12. (a) Measured mmf scan superimposed on the photograph of the PCB and (b) the magnitude plot of the mmf (for a three-layer hexagonal PCB winding
structure).
HUI AND HO: NEW GENERATION OF UNIVERSAL CONTACTLESS BATTERY CHARGING PLATFORM 625

Fig. 13. Schematic of the test circuits.

Fig. 15. Photograph of charging platform prototype (enclosed area on the
platform was energized and tested).

Fig. 14. Photograph of charging platform prototype (enclosed area on the

platform was energized and tested).

B. Practical Evaluation as a Universal Charging Platform

Fig. 13 shows the schematic of the primary and secondary
circuit of the planar battery charging system. The full-bridge in-
verter is fed with a dc voltage source (typically chosen within the
range from 10 V to 30 V) at high frequency (chosen within the
range from 100 to 500 kHz). The primary planar PCB winding
arrays are connected in series in this test, although they can in
principle be connected in series, in parallel or a combination of
both [19], [20]. They are driven by a power inverter, the oper-
ating frequency of which is controlled by a standard PWM con-
trol IC. Fig. 14 shows a photograph of the charging platform
with the cover removed. The PCB winding array can be seen.
In this particular test, only a portion of the area (enclosed in the
rectangular box in Fig. 14) is energized for evaluation.
The following tests were carried out under the conditions
Fig. 16. Two views of the measured induced rms secondary winding voltage
listed as follows. over the charging surface. (a) Measured rms secondary winding voltage (V).
DC supply voltage: 25 V. (b) Measured rms secondary winding voltage (V).
Inverter frequency: 130 kHz.
Secondary Load: A secondary PCB winding loaded
with a voltage regulator and an electronic load. With a 10- load, the expected ideal load power is 1.6 W. Fig. 15
Electronic load: Electronic load set at 10 . shows a photograph of the experimental setup. The secondary
Primary winding: two columns of four spiral hexag- voltage and current, the regulator’s output voltage and the load
onal windings with 25 turns are connected in series; power were measured and recorded over the charging surface.
DC blocking capacitor 4.7 nF; Measurements were made in the – plane and were recorded
Parallel capacitor 16.8 nF. every 0.5-cm apart in both directions. The -axis is divided
Secondary winding: one spiral circular winding with into 25 measurement points and the -axis is divided into 14
18 turns and an outer diagram of 3.9 cm is used. measurement points. So each set of 3-D magnitude plot consists
Parallel capacitor 0.5 F. of 25 14 350 measurements. A plastic sheet with the –
The bottom of the PCB is shielded with a thin ferrite sheet coordinates was placed on top of the PCB in order to facilitate
and a thin layer of copper [16]. With this experimental setup, the measurements. The secondary voltage was measured by a
the output regulated dc voltage of the secondary circuit is 4 V. Tektronix differential voltage probe P5205 and the current by
626
Fig. 17. Two views of the measured secondary load power over the charging
surface. (a) Measured secondary load power on the charging surface (W).
(b) Measured secondary load power on the charging surface (W).
a Tektronix current probe. A high-speed (500 MHz) Tektronix
digital storage oscilloscope was used for the voltage and current
measurements. Its mathematical function is used to calculate
average power values.
Fig. 16(a) and (b) show two views of the measured secondary
voltage plot when the secondary PCB planar winding is placed
over the primary charging surface. It can be seen that over
5 V rms can be induced in the secondary winging within the
excited area. It is noted that the induced voltage in the central
area is slightly lower than that near the edges. Fig. 17(a) and
(b) show two views of the measured secondary load power
over the charging surface. It can be observed that the load
power over the surfaced is in the range from 1.3 W to 1.58 W,
which is close to the ideal power of 1.6 W in the design.
It is interesting to note that the load power absorbed in the
central area of the surface is somewhat less than that near the
edges of the charging surface. This phenomenon is probably
due to the loading effect and the magnetic flux distribution
when the load is placed in the central charging area. The
charging platform in its full version (entire surface) has been
used to charge several portable electronic equipment (such
as mobile phones, MP3 player and Hard disc player) using
a secondary charging module with a conventional charging
connector. Fig. 18 shows a photograph of a mobile phone
being charged by the universal charging platform.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 20, NO. 3, MAY 2005
Fig. 18. Photograph showing a mobile phone being charged through a
patent-pending secondary charging module. (Note: winding array of the whole
area is excited in this particular test.)
V. CONCLUSION
The concepts of a novel (patent-pending) universal charging
platform and a method of using multilayer PCB spiral winding
matrices to generate uniform magnetomotive force over a planar
surface are described in this paper. Its feasibility as a battery
charger has been practically demonstrated and confirmed. The
present prototype has been tested successfully as a contactless
battery charger for a range of modified consumer electronic
products. This new invention has an important feature that sev-
eral electronic devices can be placed and charged on the plat-
form simultaneously, regardless of their positions and orien-
tation on the effective charging surface. By designing appro-
priate secondary circuits to meet the charging requirements of
different types of portable electronic equipment, this new inno-
vation forms the basis of a new generation of universal contact-
less planar battery charger. In principle, the winding arrays can
be arranged into groups and excited by individual inverters so
that localized charging can occur only in the region in which the
charged equipment is placed [19], [20].
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank P. W. Chan for his efforts in col-
lecting the measurements for this paper.
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627
S. Y. (Ron) Hui (F’03) was born in Hong Kong in
1961. He received the B.Sc. degree (with honors)
from the University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
U.K., in 1984, and the D.I.C. and Ph.D. degrees from
the Imperial College of Science and Technology,
University of London, London, U.K., in 1987.
He was a Lecturer in power electronics at the Uni-
versity of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., from 1987
to 1990. In 1990, he took up a lectureship at the Uni-
versity of Technology, Sydney, Australia, where he
became a Senior Lecturer in 1991. He joined the Uni-
versity of Sydney in 1993 and was promoted to Reader of Electrical Engineering
in 1996. Presently, he is a Chair Professor of Electronic Engineering at the City
University of Hong Kong. He has published over 150 technical papers, including
over 100 refereed journal publications.
Dr. Hui received the Teaching Excellence Award in 1999, the Grand Applied
Research Excellence Award in 2001 from the City University of Hong Kong,
and the Hong Kong Award for Industry-Technological Achievement and the
Consumer Design Award, in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He is a Fellow of the
IEE. He has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER
ELECTRONICS since 1997. He has been an At-Large Member of the IEEE PELS
AdCom since October 2002. He was appointed an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer
by IEEE PELS in 2005.
Wing W. C. Ho (M’86) received the B.E.Sc. degree in electrical engineering
and the B.Sc. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Western On-
tario, London, ON, Canada, in 1986, the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the University of Hong Kong in 1997, and the M.B.A. degree from the
University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia, in 2003.
He is presently an Assistant Product Design Manager with Artesyn Technolo-
gies AP, Ltd. He spent over 10 years with ASTEC AMPSS, Hong Kong, as a
Senior Engineer.
Dr. Ho is a Chartered Engineer in Britain.