Characterization of a Metasurface Integrated 8-Plate Reconfigurable Coding Unit-Cell Coupler for Rotational...

This study proposes a metasurface integrated reconfigurable unit-cell coupler designed for wireless power transfer (WPT) applications in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In near-field capacitive WPT systems, flexible UAV charging is restricted by rotational misalignment, which causes null power points (NPP) where energy transfer is suppressed. To address this, the proposed model emulates 1-bit digital coding states through Symmetric Excitation (SE) and Cross-Excitation (CE) states. Since precise unit-cell characterization is a prerequisite for array expansion, this research focuses on meta-atom-level analysis at 6.78 MHz with a deep sub-wavelength profile (0.002λ). Characterized through 3D full-wave analysis, the unit-cell achieves peak transmission coefficients of 0.945 for SE State and 0.903 for CE State. Crucially, these states exhibit complementary extinction angles at 90° and 45°, respectively, ensuring that the NPP of one state is effectively bypassed by the high transmissivity of the other. This dynamic switching between coding states maintains stable power transfer across a full 360° rotation, providing a technical foundation for scalable, intelligent metasurface-based wireless charging platforms.