jwR
h
+w
2
L
h
+
(wM)
2
jwL
2
+R
2
1w
2
L
2
C
2
+jwR
2
L
2
+
1
jw(C
c1
+C
c2
)
(1)
Where w is the angular frequency and M is the mutual
inductance and dened by the following equation.
M = K
L
h
L
2
(2)
Open loop test
micro coil
L2
R2
C2
Cc1 Cc2
M
Helical coil model
Ch
Lh
Rh
Cp
AC
Fig. 4. Equivalent analytical model of the inductively coupled system
K is the coupling coefcient can be analytically calculated as
a function of distance x by using the approximation dened
in [6] and given in 3.
K(x) = (
(r
S
r
R
)
x
2
+r
S
)
2
3 (3)
Where r
S
and r
R
are the radius of the test micro coil and loop
antenna.
III. RESULTS
A. Measurement results
Open loop test micro coils are inductively coupled to the
designed helical coil as shown in gure 3. The developed
wireless analytical model and the measured signal are applied
to a non linear least square estimation routine. The best
extracted from the wireless measured impedance signal (both
real and imaginary parts) and are tted back to the wireless
analytical model (as given in equation 1).
1) Wired Characterization: Wired characterization of the
test micro coils were performed on 4 different dimensions
of test micro coils. The geometrical information and wired
parameters of the micro coils are given in table I and II.
TABLE I
GEOMETRICAL DATA OF MICRO COILS
Coil N turns Douter(mm) D
inner
(mm) H(mm) W
d
(m)
1 33 4.5 3.35 0.41 71
2 60 4.2 3.30 0.45 65
3 100 3.6 1.33 0.52 60
4 200 5.18 3.1 1.17 80
TABLE II
WIRED MEASUREMENT OF MICRO COILS
Coil Lw(H) Cw (pF) Rw () Qw factor fw(MHz)
1 10.1 0.968 270 11.95 50.93
2 16.8 1.27 248 14.63 34.47
3 14.04 0.961 340 11.23 43.35
4 164 3.73 906 7.32 6.43
Where D
outer
,D
inner
,H and W
d
are the test micro coils
outer diameter, inner diameter, height and wire width. With
Lw,Cw , Rw , Qw and fw are wired inductance, distributed
capacitance, resistance, quality factor and resonance frequency
of the tested micro coils.
2) Wireless measurement: Figure 5 and 6 shows the ana-
lytical t and the wireless measurement of real and imaginary
impedance of test micro inductor with 33 turns and a measured
wireless self resonance frequency of 50.14 MHz
4 10
7
5 10
7
6 10
7
7 10
7
8 10
7
2
4
6
8
Frequency [Hz]
Analytical fit
Wireless measurement
Re (Z)
Fig. 5. Wirelessly measured impedance real part and analytical t
4 10
7
5 10
7
6 10
7
7 10
7
8 10
7
40
50
60
Analytical fit
Wireless measurement
Im (Z)
Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 6. Wirelessly measured impedance imaginary part and analytical t
Similarly loaded Q factor is calculated by measuring the
return loss signal and using the half power bandwidth for-
mula (as described in [7]) as given in 4.
Q
L
=
fwm
f
(halfpowerbandwidth)
(4)
Where fwm is the wirelessly measured resonance frequency
and f is the frequency drift between the lower and upper half
power bandwidth points measured from the return loss signal.
The wireless resonance frequency of the open ended test micro
coils can be calculated by using the following equation 5.
fwc =
1
2
L
2
C
(5)
Where C is given in equation 6 which is the test micro
coil capacitance C
2
inuenced by the series combination of
frequency depended coupling capacitances.
C = C
2
+
C
c1
C
c2
C
c1
+C
c2
(6)
Table IV contains the wirelessly measured (fwm)and calcu-
lated resonance frequency (fwc) using equation 5 and 6.
TABLE III
WIRELESSLY MEASURED OPEN LOOP MICRO COILS PARAMETERS
Coil L
2
(H) C
2
(pF) R
2
() Q
L
factor
1 9.52 1.15 252 11.15
2 15.81 1.45 232 12.95
3 13.20 1.16 318 10.16
4 154.8 4.1 848 6.42
TABLE IV
WIRELESSLY MEASURED AND CALCULATED RESONANCE FREQUENCIES
Coil fwm(MHz) fwc (MHz)
1 50.14 48.12
2 34.23 33.87
3 41.65 40.9
4 6.62 6.54
B. Simulation results
1) 3D model: To visualize the magnetic eld behavior of
the designed helical coil, a 3D model in HFSS is constructed
and is shown in gure 7. In this simulation model instead
of placing the test micro coil a sphere region is created
at the center position where the test micro coil is placed.
Non uniform magnetic eld distributions can be visualized
from the sphere region as shown in gure 8 which changes
inconsistently due to the unsymmetrical structure and non
uniform current distribution around the helical turns.
mm
mm
mm
Helical coil
Test micro coil
placement
region
Fig. 7. 3D simulation model of the Helical Coil
2) 2D FEM model of the inductively coupled system: To
numerically compute the micro inductors parameters, a 2D
FEM model in COMSOL Multiphyscics is developed. All
the wirelessly tested micro coil were air cored, multi turns
and multi layered with the double insulated copper wire of
polyurethane (base coating) and (top coating) of polyamide.
mm
mm
mm
Sphere radius= 5.65mm
Sphere volume= 760mm
3
Fig. 8. Magnetic eld behavior of the helical coil
2D Cross section array
of test micro coil
2D Cross section of
Helical coil
Fig. 9. 2D FEM model for the inductively coupled system
A simplied geometry in 2D axial asymmetrical is shown
in 9. Test micro inductor structure (as shown in gure 9)is
constructed using a 2D cross section array of circular loops
(each loop modeling a 2D cross section of insulated copper
wire) as done in [5].The helical coil pair is modeled in 2D by
making 5 equally separated circular cross section of copper
wire modeling the helical coil specications. An Ac signal
is applied to the helical coil and inductively coupled to a
2D cross section array of a test micro coil with 33 turns. To
numerically calculate the micro coil parameters, the magnetic
ux s of the test micro coil at the constructed 2D coil array
boundary and the total induced current I
Total
through the
helical coil cross sections are calculated as given in equation
7.
L
S
=
s
I
Total
n
2
(7)
Where n is the number of turns of the test micro coil. The
capacitance of the micro coil is numerically calculated as given
in 8.
C
S
=
1
w
2
L
S
(8)
Table V contains the inductances L
S
, distributed capacitance
C
S
and the resonance frequency are numerically calculated
using COMSOL.
TABLE V
NUMERICALLY CALCULATED MICRO COIL PARAMETER IN COMSOL
Coil L
S
(H) C
S
(pF) f
S
(MHz)
1 9.41 1.165 48.14
2 15.52 1.39 34.23
3 12.80 1.14 41.65
5 151 3.83 6.62
IV. CONCLUSION
We report here wireless measurement of open loop micro
inductor parameters i.e. inductance, inter winding capacitance
,resistance and Q factor in non uniform magnetic elds
generated by an air core helical coil. A wireless analytical
model is developed for the loosely coupled systems. A
non linear least square estimation routine is developed
which uses the wirelessly measured impedance signal, the
wireless analytical model Z
wireless
including all the unknown
variables. The best estimated values of the unknown variables
from the routine are tted back and compared with wirelessly
measured signal which showed a strong agreement between
the estimated values and developed model. It is concluded
here that with helical coil it is possible to characterize
the micro coil parameters with a percentage error or drift
between wired and wireless measurement is less than %6.
A 3D simulation model is developed which shows the non
uniform magnetic eld distributions of the helical coil.
Further a 2D FEM analysis is performed by constructing
2D simplied geometry using COMSOL multiphyscics. The
simulation results for the Inductance and capacitance are
presented which are close to the wirelessly measured results..
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thanks German Federation of In-
dustrial Research Associations AIF,for supporting this project.
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