Patent Grant
7903041
This invention relates generally to radio communications and more particularly to communications based on magnetic transmission.
Magnetic transmit antennas are typically configured as loops of wire having a modulated current driven through them. The higher the current at the transmitted frequencies, the greater the strength of the magnetic field and, hence, the greater the transmission range of the antenna. Conventional transmit antenna designs often use a power amplifier coupled directly to the antenna, along with a tuning capacitor to cause the antenna loop to be resonant at the transmission frequency. Loop resonance is one way to increase the current and hence the magnetic field strength of the transmit antenna. However, inducing resonance in the loop antenna may undesirably generate high voltages at the resonant frequency. Such high voltages can be in the range of 1,000 to 4,000 volts, for example. These voltages can create electrical arcs that could ignite explosive gasses within the transmitter's operational environment (e.g. a coal mine) and/or cause other undesirable effects.
On the other hand, if the additional tuning circuitry is not used in conjunction with a power amplifier directly coupled to the magnetic transmit antenna so as to cause resonance within the loop antenna (and thereby increase the magnetic field strength) then a much more powerful amplifier must be used in order to provide a substantial drive current to the loop antenna for most practical applications. For example, if a loop antenna presented a load impedance of 2 ohms, and if 100 amperes of current is needed in each loop of antenna wire for a sufficient magnetic field strength for a given application, then the amplifier would be required to provide about 200 volts of drive voltage at 100 amperes (i.e. 20,000 Watts or 20 KW). Such high power amplifiers are extremely costly, heavy and generally impractical to implement in most environments. Moreover, such a high power amplifier would severely drain a portable battery, present both a large and weighty mass element, and further generate significant heat losses. Such undesirable effects tend to preclude implementation of such a structure, particularly in environments requiring portable operations. Alternative mechanisms for increasing transmission range of magnetic loop transmit antennas is desired.
The present invention relates to a magnetic transmit antenna apparatus comprising: a toroidal core transformer having a primary winding inductively coupled to a secondary winding supplying a low voltage and high current to a magnetic transmit antenna wherein the magnetic transmit antenna includes a wire loop having multiple turns for generating a magnetic field. The toroidal core transformer includes a primary winding that operates in association with the secondary winding to match the impedance of a signal source to the magnetic transmit antenna.
The invention also relates to a process for generating a magnetic field comprising supplying a high voltage, low current to a primary winding of a toroidal core transformer, inductively coupling the primary winding to a secondary winding of the toroidal core transformer for supplying a low voltage and high current to a magnetic transmit antenna, thus generating a magnetic field.
Still further, a magnetic transmit antenna apparatus for transmitting communications data comprises: a power amplifier 160 having an input 160a for receiving a communications data signal waveform 105a for transmission, and an output providing an amplified output signal waveform 105a′ corresponding to said received communications data signal waveform; and a non-resonant toroidal core transformer driver 130 coupled between the power amplifier and a magnetic loop transmit antenna 140, the toroidal core transformer driver having a primary winding inductively coupled to a secondary winding and responsive to the output signal waveform 105a′ from the power amplifier to supply an increased current signal waveform 107 to the magnetic loop transmit antenna, wherein the magnetic loop transmit antenna includes a wire loop having multiple turns for generating a magnetic field according to the current signal waveform from the driver to transmit the communications data.
Understanding of the present invention will be facilitated by consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals refer to like parts and:
The following description of the preferred embodiments is merely by way of example and is in no way intended to limit the invention, its applications, or uses.
Before embarking on a detailed discussion, the following should be understood. Near-field magnetic wireless communications utilize non-propagating magnetic induction to create magnetic fields for transmitting (and receiving) as opposed to conventional radio frequency (RF) communications that create time varying electric fields. RF fields are virtually unbounded, tending to decrease in intensity as the square of the distance from the transmitting antenna, whereas magnetic fields decrease as the cube of the distance from the transmitting antenna in certain transmission media (e.g. in air or vacuum). Magnetic wireless communications generally do not suffer from the nulls and fades or interference or that often accompanies RF communications. However, conventional magnetic transmit loop antennas and their power amplifiers and tuning circuitry produce high voltages when operating at resonant frequencies. As previously described, this can cause dangerous power levels in the magnetic antenna loop, creating safety hazards.
The strength of the transmitted magnetic field is essentially dependant on the amount of current flowing in the transmit loop, rather than the voltage across the loop. The higher the current at the transmitted frequencies, the greater the strength of the magnetic field.
Current flowing in a loop antenna is the primary determinant of magnetic field strength. Magnetic moment (M) is determined as the amount of current in a loop of wire multiplied by the number of loops of wire and the cross sectional area of the loop(s) (i.e. Magnetic moment (M)=(current in a loop of wire)×(number of loops of wire)×(cross sectional area of the loop(s)). Actual total power or voltage applied is not a significant factor in transmission power.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, employing a transformer driver between a power amplifier and the loop of a transmit antenna provides a means to step up the current in the loop and proportionally step down the voltage, thereby keeping the power essentially constant. This enables operating the system according to an aspect of the present invention such that resonance of the loop transmit antenna is not induced, thereby allowing a broad frequency range for transmission. This is in contrast to prior art configurations that require operation at resonance, which provides only a narrow frequency range at which the transmit antenna device can function.
Moreover, the magnetic flux in a toroid is largely confined to the core, preventing its energy from being absorbed by nearby objects, making toroidal cores essentially self-shielding. Therefore, an additional feature of the toroidal transformer driver of the present invention is that it efficiently retains most of the magnetic energy in the transformer itself, thus reducing the amount of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding otherwise required in a application where EMI radiation must be kept to a minimum.
Referring now to the drawings, there is shown in
As shown in
As further shown in
The toroidal core 130 transformer driver primary and secondary windings are configured such that for a given input voltage and current applied to the primary winding 125, amplifies the current at the output of the secondary while reducing (e.g. inverting) the voltage output at the secondary. The waveform of the signal is not changed by the non-resonant structure, however, the current input to the loop antenna is magnified while the voltage is reduced. The increased current signal 107 waveform is input to the magnetic loop transmit antenna, wherein the magnetic loop transmit antenna includes a wire loop having multiple turns for generating a magnetic field modulated according to the current signal waveform from the driver to transmit the communications data by modulating the magnetic signal output from the loop antenna.
The separation between transmit antenna 110 and an associated receiving antenna (not shown) is about one half (½) the carrier wavelength or less for near field operation.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, power amplifier signals (see
Referring again to
In one embodiment of the invention, the secondary 120 windings are wide strips or ribbons of copper to achieve wide core coverage with least turns for a given turns ratio in primary 125 to secondary 120. In another embodiment of the invention the primary 125 wire wraps around the entire toroidal core such that primary 125 essentially winds around the entire inside surface of the toroid so as to provide an efficient coupling between the wire and the magnetic field surrounding the wire and the toroid material itself.
In yet another embodiment of the invention the secondary 120 utilizes a wire of lower gauge (e.g., AWG 6 gauge) and the primary 125 utilizes a higher gauge (e.g., 22 gauge wire) which is wrapped around the secondary. Alternatively, the thicker secondary wire 120 may be wrapped around the outside of the primary wire 125. In one version of the embodiment the primary 125 and the secondary 120 are interleaved. In each of the aforementioned embodiments the objective is to achieve an efficient electrical coupling between the primary 125 and the secondary 120 windings.
Various combinations of primary wire and secondary wire wound around the transformer core 135 are used to achieve differing goals dependent on transmit power, and voltage and current constraints. By way of example and not limitation, in one embodiment of the invention the transformer 130 comprises a primary of 32 AWG gauge wire having 300 turns. In yet another embodiment the transformer 130 comprises a primary composed of multiple turns of AWG 22 gauge wire wound around a secondary of 4 turns of AWG 6 gauge.
Referring to the schematic circuit shown in
In one embodiment the primary winding 220 and the secondary winding 235 are wound with AWG 22 gauge copper magnetic wire which is lacquered for insulation. The use of AWG 22 gauge wire for the secondary winding 235 limits the current to less than 20 amps due to wire heating and for certain applications is a lower size limit for the wire employed for the toroid core transformer 230 secondary. The size wire also determines the equivalent circuit resistance looking back from the transmit antenna 110 into the secondary winding 235. The antenna 240 presents to the secondary winding 235 an equivalent circuit 250 comprising a resistor R1 in series with an inductor L1. In one embodiment the input voltage to the primary 220 is 6.48 volts RMS and the ratio of primary windings 220 to secondary windings 235 is 16:1, such that the secondary voltage is less than approximately 0.4 volts passing a current of 54.8 amps through the antenna 240.
With reference to the circuit shown in
With reference now to
Still referring to
One non-limiting embodiment of the antenna 110 comprises a loop 140 of 60 turns 32 gauge wire in the form of a rectangle essentially having x and y dimensions substantially between 0.0125 and 0.0375 meters in each respective dimension. The rectangular opening may have an area between 0.00016 and 0.00014 meters square. In another non limiting embodiment of the invention the loop 140 has dimensions of about 2.5 cm to 3.75 cm wide×5.0 cm high.
In an exemplary embodiment, and with reference to
In yet another non-limiting example, allowing for efficiency losses, loop 140 current of 90 amperes produced by 0.10 volt RMS in the secondary winding 235 requires a 10 watt source 210 as may be provided by power amplifier 160 (
Referring still to
The description of the invention is merely exemplary in nature and, thus, variations that do not depart from the gist of the invention are intended to be within the scope of the invention. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention.
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