SUMMARY
Recently, wireless power transfer (WPT) systems with active receivers have been proposed for conduction loss reduction, bidirectional power transfer and efficiency improvement. However, the synchronization of WPT systems is complex in nature with the selection of high operating frequencies. Without proper synchronization, power oscillations appear and the system can become unstable. In this paper, a detailed analysis of different WPT systems is presented and the essence of the synchronization technique is derived as being composed of two functions: independent frequency locking and reference phase calibration. The voltage across the receiver-side compensation capacitor is divided and utilized for frequency locking, whereas the reference phase calibration is realized through software code. The proposed method is effective and easy to implement, with a lower overall cost due to its simplicity. The technique can work effectively at high frequency and withstand large variations of operating frequency, load and mutual inductance. In addition, it can address the synchronization problem of multiple active receiver WPT systems with and without cross coupling among the receiving coils. Theoretical analysis and experimental results validate the proposed technique.