Abstract & Overview
Wireless power transfer (WPT) principles have been developed over a century since Tesla got a patent of apparatus for transmitting electrical energy. After the World War II, wireless power transmission at microwave frequencies have been focused and developed rapidly. The main goal of WPT is to transmit energy wirelessly from one place to another for charging purposes. WPT can be applied in many different application areas. New WPT technologies have been proposed not only for military purposes but also civil applications. The technologies satisfy either very long distances or short distances, such as satellite systems, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), vehicle networks, wireless sensor networks and especially communication networks. In this paper, we review basic concepts of WPT and recent applications. We focus on WPT for communication network applications. The new achievements and their practical uses are also mentioned and discussed. In addition, we point out new and challenging future research directions for Wireless-powered communication networks.