Investigation and Study of Mode Splitting in Near Field Inductive Communication Systems

Frequency splitting is a near field inductive communication phenomenon where the resonant frequency divides into many separate frequencies or to different modes. In this paper, we show that this phenomenon depends on the coupling coefficients or the natural response of the circuit by using the circuit theory to derive these splitting frequencies. Also, the rules for the general matrix that is used to solve for splitting frequencies are also demonstrated clearly. Mode splitting is observed for peer-to-peer, three coils and four coil systems due to the existence of the nearest and second neighbour interactions. In particular, two, three and four modes have been analysed for two, three, and four coil systems respectively. However, the number of modes for these systems can be changed according to the degree of coupling. The differences in the resultant splitting frequencies with and without the second neighbour interaction are shown in the simulation results. Furthermore, we assess the system performances regarding to power efficiency through the inductive transfer functions. Besides, either coupling coefficients at resonance or the simplified transfer functions in some specific scenarios can be obtained by having an insight into these transfer functions. Finally, we recognise and propose that splitting frequency phenomenon can be deployed to transmit signals at many frequencies concurrently.