An Inductive Power Transfer System for Driving Multiple OLED Light Panels

An inductive power transfer system for driving multiple organic light-emitting diode (OLED) light panels is presented. Each light panel is driven by an output in a daisy-chained transformer (DCT) structure through a detachable transformer. The DCT structure allows using a single switching network to drive multiple light panels with good current balancing. A primary-side freewheeling (FW) circuit and an open-load protection network are introduced to maintain the current-balancing function of the DCT structure upon abnormal power transfer from the primary side to the secondary side of the detachable transformer. Apart from easy and safe operation, the proposed system also offers a modular, scalable, maintenance-free, and hot-swappable platform for large-area illumination. Modeling, design, and analysis of the system under normal and faulty operating conditions and misalignment of the detachable transformer will be given. A prototype system with four OLED light panels has been built and evaluated. The experimental results show that the circuit has a robust current balancing ability and fault condition tolerance. In addition, a comparison on the cost effectiveness between DCT structure and "one-drive-to-one-load" structure is investigated.