Ranging On-Demand Microwave Power Transfer in Real-Time

This letter presents a novel system for real-time ranging wireless power transfer (WPT) 'on-demand.' This is obtained by duty-cycling a frequency diverse array (FDA) and by suitably choosing the time delay of the pulse. First, the theoretical design of the time-and frequency-dependent array is developed, and then it is applied to predict the ranging performances of a 16-element linear array. The simulations demonstrate the system's ability not only to dynamically select the area for energy focusing but also to reduce the energy intensity in undesired areas. The sharpness of this operation depends on the number of elements of the array. For validation purposes, a demonstrator has been implemented making use of the software-defined radio (SDR) Xilinx RFSoC ZCU111 to dynamically generate various radio signal excitations of the antenna array. To comply with the adopted SDR the operating frequency is 1.8 GHz and a four-element array is used. First measurements confirm the ranging capabilities of the proposed solution.