Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam

Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam, Rui Zhang

Magnetic resonant coupling (MRC) is an efficient method for realizing the near-field wireless power transfer (WPT). Although the MRC enabled WPT (MRC-WPT) with a single pair of transmitter and receiver has been thoroughly studied in the literature, there is limited work on the general setup with multiple transmitters and/or receivers. In this paper, we consider a point-to-multipoint MRC-WPT system with one transmitter delivering wireless power to a set of distributed receivers. We aim to introduce new applications of signal processing and optimization techniques to the performance characterization and optimization in multiuser WPT via MRC. We first derive closed-form expressions for the power drawn from the energy source at the transmitter and that delivered to the load at each receiver. We identify a "near-far" fairness issue in multiuser power transmission due to receivers' distance-dependent mutual inductance with the transmitter. To tackle this issue, we propose a centralized charging control algorithm to jointly optimize the receivers' load resistance to minimize the total transmitter power drawn while meeting the given power requirement of each individual load. For ease of practical implementation, we also devise a distributed algorithm for the receivers to adjust their load resistance independently in an iterative manner. Last, we characterize the power region that constitutes all the achievable power-tuples of the loads via controlling their adjustable resistance. In particular, we compare the power regions without versus with the time sharing of users' power transmission, where it is shown that time sharing yields a larger power region in general. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate our analysis and corroborate our study on the multiuser MRC-WPT system.

Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam, Rui Zhang

In multiple-input single-output (MISO) wireless power transfer (WPT) via magnetic resonant coupling (MRC), multiple transmitters are deployed to enhance the efficiency of power transfer to the electric load at a single receiver by jointly optimizing their source currents/voltages to constructively combine the induced magnetic fields at the receiver, known as magnetic beamforming. In practice, since the transmitters (power chargers) are usually at fixed locations and the receiver (e.g. mobile phone) is desired to be freely located in a target region for wireless charging, its received power can fluctuate significantly over locations even with adaptive magnetic beamforming applied. To achieve uniform coverage, the transmitters need to be optimally placed in the region, which motivates this paper. First, we derive the optimal magnetic beamforming solution in closed-form for a distributed MISO WPT system with given locations of the transmitters and receiver to maximize the deliverable power to the receiver load subject to a given sum-power constraint at all transmitters. With the optimal magnetic beamforming solution, we then jointly optimize the locations of all transmitters to maximize the minimum power deliverable to the receiver when it is being moved over a given one-dimensional (1D) region, i.e., a line of finite length. Although the formulated node placement problem is non-convex, we propose an iterative algorithm for solving it efficiently. Extensive simulation results are provided which show the significant performance gains by the proposed design with optimized transmitter locations and magnetic beamforming as compared to other benchmark schemes with non-adaptive or heuristic currents allocation and transmitters placement. Last, we extend the node placement problem to the more general case of two-dimensional (2D) region, and draw the key insights.

Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam, Rui Zhang

Magnetic resonant coupling (MRC) is a practically appealing method for realizing the near-field wireless power transfer (WPT). The MRC-WPT system with a single pair of transmitter and receiver has been extensively studied in the literature, while there is limited work on the general setup with multiple transmitters and/or receivers. In this paper, we consider a point-to-multipoint MRC-WPT system with one transmitter sending power wirelessly to a set of distributed receivers simultaneously. We derive the power delivered to the load of each receiver in closed-form expression, and reveal a "near-far" fairness issue in multiuser power transmission due to users' distance-dependent mutual inductances with the transmitter. We also show that by designing the receivers' load resistances, the near-far issue can be optimally solved. Specifically, we propose a centralized algorithm to jointly optimize the load resistances to minimize the power drawn from the energy source at the transmitter under given power requirements for the loads. We also devise a distributed algorithm for the receivers to adjust their load resistances iteratively, for ease of practical implementation.

Katayoun Rahbar, Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam, Sanjib Kumar Panda

Energy storage systems (ESSs) are essential components of the future smart grids with high penetration of renewable energy sources. However, deploying individual ESSs for all energy consumers, especially in large systems, may not be practically feasible mainly due to high upfront cost of purchasing many ESSs and space limitation. As a result, the concept of shared ESS enabling all users charge/discharge to/from a common ESS has become appealing. In this paper, we study the energy management problem of a group of users with renewable energy sources and controllable (i.e., demand responsive) loads that all share a common ESS so as to minimize their sum weighted energy cost. Specifically, we propose a distributed algorithm to solve the formulated problem, which iteratively derives the optimal values of charging/discharging to/from the shared ESS, while only limited information is exchanged between users and a central controller; hence, the privacy of users is preserved. With the optimal charging and discharging values obtained, each user needs to independently solve a simple linear programming (LP) problem to derive the optimal energy consumption of its controllable loads over time as well as that of purchased from the grid. Using simulations, we show that the shared ESS can achieve lower energy cost compared to the case of distributed ESSs, where each user owns its ESS and does not share it with others. Next, we propose online algorithms for the real-time energy management, under non-zero prediction errors of load and renewable energy. The proposed algorithms differ in complexity and the information required to be shared between the users and central controller, where their performance is also compared via simulations.

Katayoun Rahbar, Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam, Sanjib Kumar Panda et al.

This paper investigates the energy management problem for multiple self-interested users, each with renewable energy generation as well as both the fixed and controllable loads, that all share a common energy storage system (ESS). The self-interested users are willing to sell/buy energy to/from the shared ESS if they can achieve lower energy costs compared to the case of no energy trading while preserving their privacy e.g. sharing only limited information with a central controller. Under this setup, we propose an iterative algorithm by which the central controller coordinates the charging/discharging values to/from the shared ESS by all users such that their individual energy costs reduce at the same time. For performance benchmark, the case of cooperative users that all belong to the same entity is considered, where they share all the required information with the central controller so as to minimize their total energy cost. Finally, the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm in simultaneously reducing users' energy costs is shown via simulations based on realistic system data of California, US.

Katayoun Rahbar, Mohammad R. Vedady Moghadam, Sanjib Kumar Panda et al.

Energy storage systems (ESSs) are essential components of the future smart grid to smooth out the fluctuating output of renewable energy generators. However, installing large number of ESSs for individual energy consumers may not be practically implementable, due to both the space limitation and high investment cost. As a result, in this paper, we study the energy management problem of multiple users with renewable energy sources and a single shared ESS. To solve this problem, we propose an algorithm that jointly optimizes the energy charged/discharged to/from the shared ESS given a profit coefficient set that specifies the desired proportion of the total profit allocated to each user, subject to practical constraints of the system. We conduct simulations based on the real data from California, US, and show that the shared ESS can potentially increase the total profit of all users by 10% over the case that users own individual small-scale ESSs with no energy sharing.