The Ichimura Foundation for New Technology aims to cultivate and develop new fields in our country's industry and science and technology by broadly conducting original research and developing new technologies related to science and technology, and by putting these into practical use, contributing to the improvement of the quality of life for the citizens. The foundation's grants target "the practical application of original new technologies," focusing on development prototypes aimed at practical use after confirming basic technologies. Since the establishment of the foundation in 1968, grants have been provided twice a year in principle. Starting from the 102nd round (the second round of fiscal year 2018), grants will be provided in the environmental sector of this assistance for the development of original new technologies aimed at preventing global warming. From the first to the 116th round, there have been a total of 909 cases, with a total grant amount of 8.17 billion yen.

Wireless power transfer, which eliminates the need for cables and connectors, is expanding primarily in small appliances such as mobile phones, electric toothbrushes, and lighting, and it is expected to further advance in applications for electric vehicles, electric wheelchairs, and drones in the future. There is a magnetic field resonance method for wireless power transfer that allows for a large distance between the power transmission coil and the receiving coil, but it requires optimization of circuit parameters according to the distance, and there was a significant issue where transmission power would drastically decrease due to distance variations caused by positional shifts. Therefore, we are developing a wireless power transfer device that maintains stable transmission power despite fluctuations in the positional relationship between the power transmission coil and the receiving coil. In the devised device, circuit parameters are set to exhibit PT symmetry (time-space inversion symmetry) to minimize power loss, and to accommodate variations in current resonance frequency due to changes in coil distance, the current of the power transmission coil is detected, and the gate timing of the switching element is controlled to maintain the circuit's current at the resonance frequency. As a result, we have demonstrated that high power transmission efficiency can be maintained even with significant changes in position and distance.