Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have broad application prospects due to having the characteristics of low power, low cost, wide distribution and self-organization. At present, most the WSNs are battery powered, but batteries must be changed frequently in this method. If the changes are not on time, the energy of sensors will be insufficient, leading to node faults or even networks interruptions. In order to solve the problem of poor power supply reliability in WSNs, a novel power supply method, the single-wire power transfer method, is utilized in this paper. This method uses only one wire to connect source and load. According to the characteristics of WSNs, a single-wire power transfer system for WSNs was designed. The characteristics of directivity and multi-loads were analyzed by simulations and experiments to verify the feasibility of this method. The results show that the total efficiency of the multi-load system can reach more than 70% and there is no directivity. Additionally, the efficiencies are higher than wireless power transfer (WPT) systems under the same conductions. The single-wire power transfer method could satisfy the characteristics of WSNs and effectively solve the problem of poor power supply reliability.

The technology of wireless power transfer via coupled magnetic resonances (CMR-WPT) has a good transfer performance in the “middle range”, but it is far from satisfying the application requirements in practice. To achieve a longer transfer distance, coils are usually complicatedly designed, making the system unwieldy and costly. Based on the intuitive and easily adjustable coil parameters, a design and optimization method was proposed in this paper, which can realize the minimum size coil that meets the requirements at 6.78 MHz. First, an equivalent model of the CMR-WPT system was developed, and the influences of coil parameters on the effective transfer distance and power transfer efficiency (PTE) were analyzed, indicating that the effective transfer distance and PTE were not always proportional to the coil radius, the number of turns or the pitch. Then, the coil impedance and the quality factor of different coils were calculated. In addition, the influence degree of coil parameters on the transfer performance was also compared using variable control. Finally, an experimental platform was built, and experimental results agreed well with the simulation results.