A New Omnidirectional Wireless Power Transmission

Solution for The Wireless Endoscopic Micro-Ball

Xiaomeng Li
#1
, Tianjia Sun
#
, Guolin Li
*
, Xiang Xie
#2
, Yingke Gu
#
and Zhihua Wang
#
#
Institute of Microelectronics,
*
Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University
Beijing, China
1
lixm09@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
2
xiexiang@tsinghua.edu.cn

AbstractThe wireless endoscopic Micro-Ball is used to capture
images of gastrointestinal (GI) tracts and save them into Flash
memories. The batteries will be exhausted after the Micro-Ball is
excreted from human body. So a new wireless power
transmission (WPT) solution is proposed to deliver energy from
an image reader to the Micro-Ball to fetch the stored images. In
this solution, considering that the posture of the Micro-Ball is
uncertain when it is placed into the image reader and the
volume of the Micro-Ball is too small to contain multiple
receiving coils, we employ multiple emitting coils in the image
reader and one single receiving coil inside the Micro-Ball.
Additionally, an adaptive control mechanism is proposed to
select the optimum emitting coil with the highest power
efficiency to transmit wireless power to the Micro-Ball placed
inside the image reader. As a result, the Micro-Ball can work
well in the image reader under all postures with highest power
efficiency. The experimental results prove that the power
delivering efficiency is in the range of 32% to 36%.
I. INTRODUCTION
The wireless endoscopic capsules containing one or two
cameras is designed for the examination of gastrointestinal (GI)
tracts
[1]
. Due to the random movement of the wireless capsule
in the digestive tracts, it may omit some critical spots during
the checking procedure. In order to receive the image data
transmitted from capsule in real time, a receiving antenna
array has to be attached on the patients body. This limits the
patients movement and makes them feel uncomfortable.
Thus, the former research
[2]
has presented the Micro-Ball
Endoscopy System. Compared with the traditional capsule
endoscopy, the Micro-Ball containing six cameras can reduce
the blind area. Because there are six cameras, the power
consumption of the Micro-Ball is much higher than that of the
traditional capsule endoscopy. Instead of transmitting images
outside the human body, the Micro-Ball stores images into
Flash memories to save energy. After the Micro-Ball is
excreted from human body, the batteries would be exhausted
because of the high power consumption. Then place the
Micro-ball into an image reader. There is a wireless power
emitter in the image reader and a power receiver in the Micro-
Ball. The emitter supplies wireless energy to the Micro-Ball,
and the images stored in the Flash are read out. The above
workflow of the Micro-Ball Endoscopy System was described
in reference [3] and is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Workflow of the Micro-Ball Endoscopy System
Considering the random posture of the Micro-Ball when it
is put into the image reader, an omnidirectional WPT solution
is needed to meet this applications requirements. Most of the
former researches adopt multiple receiving coils
[3][4][5][6]
.
However, the Micro-Ball has a diameter about 13mm~15mm
and most of the spaces are occupied by six cameras and
batteries. The left spaces are too limited to contain multiple
receiving coils and related components.
This paper presents two new ideas to solve the above
problems. One is a new WPT structure. Compared with the
other WPT system which adopts a single emitting coil and
multiple receiving coils, this new structure uses multiple
emitting coils and only one receiving coil. This new structure
not only guarantees that the transmitted wireless power is
omnidirectional, but also makes the Micro-Ball small enough.
The other idea proposed in this paper is an adaptive control
mechanism. The mechanism chooses only one emitting coil
with the highest power delivering efficiency to emit wireless
power. The new structure and the adaptive control mechanism
are two key factors to the success of this solution.
II. THE NEW STRUCTURE
In order to transmit omnidirectional wireless power to the
Micro-Ball when it is placed into the image reader and save
the space inside the Micro-Ball, this new structure adopts
multiple emitting coils and a single receiving coil. As shown
978-1-4244-9474-3/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE 2609

in Figure 2, the new structure contains five emitting coils on
the image reader and a single receiving coil inside the Micro-
Ball. The five emitting coils are fixed on the image reader
along the direction of three orthogonal axes. The Coil 1 and
Coil 3 are placed along the direction of the x-axis. The Coil 2
and Coil 4 are placed along the direction of the y-axis. For this
reason, Coil 1 and Coil 3 are perpendicular to both Coil 2 and
Coil 4. The Coil 5 is placed at the bottom and along the
direction of z-axis. It is perpendicular to all the other four
emitting coils. The single receiving coil is placed on one plane
of the cube in the Micro-Ball
[2]
.
1
3
4 2
5
Emitting
Coils
Micro-Ball
x
y
z
Image Reader
A Single Receiving Coil

Figure 2. A New Structure of The WPT Solution
To evaluate the performance of this new structure, analysis
of the magnetic field is conducted. Due to the symmetric
structure of the power emitting coils and there is only one
working emitting coil at any time, the analysis can be
simplified to analyze the distribution of the magnetic field
generated by only one emitting coil. As shown in Figure 3(a),
the relative orientation and position between the receiving coil
and the emitting coils can be represented by two angles after
the Micro-Ball is placed into the image reader. The angle
represents the angle between the plane of the receiving coil
and the plane xoz. The angle represents the angle between
the plane of the receiving coil and the plane xoy.

(a)Definitions of Two Angles (b) Magnetic Strength Generated by
Coil1 at The Center of The Receiving Coil
Figure 3. Analysis of The Magnetic Field
Here, we analyze the magnetic field generated by the Coil
1 in Figure 2 and we only need to consider the range of and
from negative 45 degrees to positive 45 degrees. Once any
angle is out of this range, another emitting coil will work and
generate the same magnetic field as the former emitting coil
does. According to Biot-Savart Law, the magnetic strength
can be determined by the two angles. Meanwhile, the
magnetic strength is also proportional to the turns of the
emitting coil (N) and the current (I) in the emitting coil. We
get
B = f(, , N, I) (1)
On condition that N=1 and I=1A, the relationship between
the magnetic strength at the center of the receiving coil
generated by one emitting coil and the two angles is shown in
Figure 3(b). If N and I change, B will change in the same
proportion.
From the above figure, we find that in the range we
concern the magnetic strength does not change tremendously.
The maximum B is 4.610
-5
T when || = || = u, while
the minimum B is 3.9 10
-5
T when || = || = 4S .
Similarly, other emitting coils can also generate the same
magnetic field. Figure 4 indicates that the distribution of the
magnetic strength at the center of the receiving coil inside the
image reader varies periodically, and the range of variation is
less than 15%. So it is reasonable to assume that the magnetic
field is nearly uniform in the image reader when only one
emitting coil works. Whatever the posture of the Micro-Ball is
when it is put into the image reader, it can receive the wireless
power with high efficiency all the time.

Figure 4. Distribution of Magnetic Field inside The Image Reader
If the structure adopts a single emitting coil and a single
receiving coil, it is hard for the doctors to place the Micro-Ball
with the best posture exactly in the actual working conditions.
Furthermore, placing an external marker on the Micro-Ball to
show the position of the receiving coil is also inappropriate.
Due to the marker will block the line of sight of the cameras in
the Micro-Ball, this method cannot be employed. Compared
with the new structure presented in this work, the above
methods for supplying wireless energy cannot meet the
requirement of the Micro-Ball Endoscopy System. To sum up,
this new structure is practical.
III. THE ADAPTIVE CONTROL MECHANISM
An adaptive control mechanism is proposed in this section
for the new structure presented above. Under the control of
this mechanism, only one emitting coil with the highest power
delivering efficiency is activated to emit the wireless power.
A. Theoretical analysis of the adaptive control mechanism
The principle of the adaptive control mechanism is that the
emitting coil couples with the receiving coil and the emitting
coil side has an equivalent impedance of the receiving coil
side. The greater the equivalent impedance is, the stronger the
degree of coupling is, which corresponds to a higher power
delivering efficiency. This mechanism detects the variation of
the electric parameter caused by the variation of the equivalent
impedance, and then selects the emitting coil with the highest
power delivering efficiency. This new WPT solution can be
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modeled by Figure 5(a) when only one emitting coil is
activated to work.

(a) The Emitting Coil Couples with The Receiving Coil

(b) Emitting Coil in No-Load State (C) Emitting Coil in Loaded State
Figure 5. The Schematic Circuit of The Adaptive Control Mechanism
As depicted in Figure 5(a), the left circuit connecting to a
voltage source represents the emitter while the right circuit
represents the receiver. The source V
i
has an internal
resistance R
s
. L
1
is the inductance of the emitting coil, and C
1

is the tuning capacitor connected to the emitting coil. The
circuit works at a selected resonant frequency by tuning the
capacitor C
1
. R
1
is the parasitic resistance of the emitting coil.
In a similar way, L
2
, C
2
and R
2
are the inductance, tuning
capacitor and parasitic resistance of the receiving coil. R
L

represents the load connected to the receiving coil. M is the
mutual inductance between the two coils. The mutual
inductance M can be represented by
N = k.L
1
L
2
(2)
The parameter k is the coupling coefficient.
According to Figure 5(a), the model of the WPT solution
can be expressed by Equation (2).
|
v
I
u
|
=
l
l
l
lR
s
+R
1
+ j(L
1
-
1
C
1
) -jN
-jN R
L
+ R
2
+ j(L
2
-
1
C
2
)
1
1
1
1
|
I
1
I
2
|
(3)
Since the circuit works at the selected resonant frequency,
the impedance of the emitting coil and the receiving coil turns
into a resistance. An detailed deduction was proposed to prove
that the power delivering efficiency relates to the coupling
coefficient k
[7]
. The efficiency can be expressed by Equation
(4).
=
k
2
Q
1
Q
2
1+k
2
Q
1
Q
2
(4)
The parameter Q
1
and Q
2
are quality factors of the emitting
and receiving coil, which are determined by the size of the coil
and the working frequency. If the working frequency and the
size of the coil are determined, Q is a constant. When the
Micro-Ball is not placed into the image reader, it can be
supposed that the WPT solution is in the no-load state. The
parameter k in Equation (2) is zero and we get a V
ab
as shown
in Figure 5(b). When the Micro-Ball is put into the image
reader, the working state of the WPT solution changes and we
get a changed value of V
ab
as shown in Figure 5(c). We mark
this loaded V
ab
as v
ab
i
. The calculation of the increasing rate of
V
ab
can be expressed as followed according to Equation (2)
and Equation (3).
v
ab
% =
V
ab
|
-V
ab
V
ab
=
k
2
m
2
L
1
L
2
R
5
R
1
|(R
5
+R
1
)(R
L
+R
2
)+k
2
m
2
L
1
L
2
]
(5)
The value of the coupling coefficient k is very small under
normal conditions and we always get k << 0.1. Therefore, we
come to a conclusion that
k
2

2
L
1
L
2
< (R
S
+ R
1
)(R
L
+R
2
) (6)
and
v
ab
% = C

1-
C =
m
2
L
1
L
2
R
s
R
1
Q
1
Q
2
(R
5
+R
1
)(R
L
+R
2
)
(7)
According to Equation (7), the power delivering efficiency
is positive related to the v
ab
%. It means that the emitting coil
with a highest delivering efficiency will show a prominent
change of V
ab
when the Micro-Ball is placed into the image
reader. In the following experiment, this conclusion is verified.
As shown in Figure 6, the efficiency is from one emitting coil
to the receiving coil. When the efficiency reaches 36%, the
measured value of v
ab
% is 56.7% and the theoretical value
is 56.2%. When the efficiency is 32%, the measured value is
46% and the theoretical value is 47%. From Figure 6 we find
that the measured value is matching the theoretical Equation
(7). This will lead a design to implement the adaptive control
mechanism as shown in the following.

Figure 6. Relation between Efficiency And Increasing Rate of Vab
B. Implementation of the adaptive control mechanism
A circuit is designed to implement the adaptive control
mechanism as shown in Figure 7. According to the analysis
above, to select the emitting coil with the highest power
delivering efficiency to emit wireless power, this circuit
detects the greatest v
ab
% among the five emitting coils.

Figure 7. Implementation of The Adaptive Control Mechenism
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This circuit contains an AC source, an envelope detection
circuit, an A/D convertor, a multiplexer and a digital controller.
The envelope detection circuit is used to collect V
ab
and the
A/D converter is used to process the signal of V
ab
collected by
the envelope detection circuit in order to meet the
requirements of the digital controller. The digital controller is
used to send a control signal to the multiplexer, and controls
the different switches on or off. When this WPT solution is in
no-load state as shown in Figure 5(b), i.e., before the Micro-
Ball is placed into the image reader, the digital controller uses
a polling mode to collect five V
ab
of each emitting coil. When
the Micro-Ball is placed into the image reader as shown in
Figure 5(c), the digital controller gets five loaded v
ab
i

in the
similar way. After calculating five v
ab
% , the digital
controller selects one coil with the greatest v
ab
% to emit the
wireless power.
IV. EXPERIMENTS
To verify the validity of our analysis, prototypes of the
image reader and the Micro-Ball were fabricated. Figure 8(a)
describes the prototype of the image reader. It is comprised of
five plastic square boards, whose edge length is 20mm. The
five emitting coils are all with a diameter of 11mm and they
are placed as shown in Figure 2. Figure 8(b) depicts the
prototype of the Micro-Ball with a diameter of 14mm. The
cube has an edge length of 8mm and the receiving coil on one
plane of the cube has a diameter of 7mm. An energy recovery
circuit with a red LED is connected to the receiving coil.

(a) Image Reader (b) Micro-Ball
Figure 8. Prototype of The WPT Solution
According to Equation (4), a high value of Q
1
Q
2

corresponds to a high efficiency. The method of optimizing
the receiving and emitting coils is to search an optimal value
of Q
1
Q
2
. At the frequency of 3.17MHz, the value of Q
1
Q
2
has
the largest value. Figure 9 depicts the prototype of this WPT
solution works in practice. A signal generator outputs a
sinusoidal signal with a frequency of 3.17MHz. Tuning
capacitors were connected to the receiving and emitting coils
in order to tune the frequency resonate at 3.17MHz. The
receiving coils tuning capacitor is inside the Micro-Ball.

Figure 9. The WPT Solution Works in Practice
Agilent 8753SE S-Parameter Network Analyzer is used
here to measure S11 and S21. As shown in Figure 10, the best
efficiency reaches 36% at 3.17MHz. This situation happens
when and in Figure 3(a) are all zero. The worst case
appears when || = || = 4S. At this moment the efficiency
drops to 32%. This result is exactly matching the distribution
of the magnetic field depicted in Figure 4.

(a) S11 of Emitting Coil (b) S21 from Emitting Coil to Micro-Ball
Figure 10. S11 And S21 Measured by S-Parameter Network Analyzer
The proposed WPT structure and the adaptive control
mechanism ensure that whatever the posture of the Micro-Ball
in the image reader is, the emitting coil with the highest power
delivering efficiency can be selected to work. Experiments
indicate that 150mW can be successfully delivered, which can
meet the requirement of the Micro-Ball.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a new wireless power transmission
solution for the Micro-Ball endoscopy system. In this solution,
a new structure and an adaptive control mechanism are
proposed. The new structure ensures that the omnidirectional
wireless power can be transmitted to the Micro-Ball inside the
image reader. The adaptive control mechanism can select the
emitting coil with the highest power delivering efficiency to
emit the wireless power. The experiments show that the power
delivering efficiency can be guaranteed between 32% and
36%.
REFERENCES
[1] Gavriel Iddan, Gavriel Meron, Arkady Glukhovsky, et al. Wireless
capsule endoscopy,Nature,2000,pp.417-418A.B.
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System with Multi-Camera, IEEE Biomedical Circuits and System
Conference, pp. 289-292, Nov. 2009
[3] An asymmetric resonant coupling wireless power transmission link for
Micro-Ball Endoscopy. Sun, Tianjia; Xie, Xiang; Li, Guolin, et al. Conf
Proc IEEE EMBC, vol.1, pp. 6531-6534, 2010
[4] Lenaerts, B.; Puers, R. An omnidirectional transcutaneous power link
for capsule endoscopy, International Workshop on Wearable and
Implantable Body Sensor Networks, pp.4, 2006
[5] Lenaerts B, Puers R. An inductive power link for a wireless
endoscopy. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Vol.22, No.7, pp.1390-
1395, Feb 15 2007
[6] Ryu M, Kim JD, Chin HU, et al. Three-dimensional power receiver
for in vivo robotic capsules, Medical & Biological & Engineering &
Computing, Vol.45, No.10, pp.997-1002, Oct 2007
[7] Kumar, A.; Mirabbasi, S.; Mu C.; Resonance-based wireless power
delivery for implantable devices, IEEE Biomedical Circuits and
Systems Conference Page(s): 25 28, 2009

AC Source
Micro-Ball
20mm
11mm
Tuning
Capacitor
-9.2db
7mm
8mm
Tuning
Capacitor
-4.5db
14mm
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