Beamforming for wireless power transfer

A system for beamforming for wireless power transfer comprising:

• a plurality of elements adapted and configured to transmit waveforms for a transmitted beam based on supplied control signals;
• a receiver position detector adapted to determine a position of a receiving wireless power transfer device;
• and
• a computing device comprising a transducer signal generator configured to determine a phase/amplitude map for a notional field in a plane of an aperture of the receiving wireless power transfer device, perform a Fourier transform on the phase/amplitude map for the notional field to generate a spatial frequency representation of the notional field in the plane of the aperture of the receiving wireless power transfer device, determine a phase/amplitude map for a second notional field in a plane of an aperture of the a transmitting wireless power transfer device comprising the plurality of elements based on the spatial frequency representation of the notional field in the plane of the aperture of the receiving wireless power transfer device and the position of the receiving wireless power transfer device, generate control signals for one or more of the plurality of elements based on the determined phase/amplitude map for the second notional field in the plane of the aperture of the transmitting wireless power transfer device, and supply the control signals for one or more of the plurality of elements to the one or more of the plurality of elements.

A system comprising:

• one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions which are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
• determining a position of a second wireless power transfer device relative to a first wireless power transfer device;
• determining a phase/amplitude map for a notional field in a plane of an aperture of the second wireless power transfer device;
• performing a Fourier transform on the phase/amplitude map for the notional field to generate a spatial frequency representation of the notional field in the plane of the aperture of the second wireless power transfer device;
• determining a phase/amplitude map for a second notional field in a plane of an aperture of the first wireless power transfer device based on the spatial frequency representation of the notional field in the plane of the aperture of the second wireless power transfer device and the position of the second wireless power transfer device;
• generating control signals for one or more transducer elements of the first wireless power transfer device based on the determined phase/amplitude map for the second notional field in the plane of the aperture of the first wireless power transfer device;
• supplying the control signals for the one or more transducer elements to the one or more transducer elements;
• and
• transmitting waveforms from the one or more transducer elements based on the supplied control signals.