Can wireless power transfer benefit from large transmitter arrays?

In this paper, we illustrate the potential benefits of using large transmitter arrays for wireless power transfer. Specifically, we analyze the probability of outage in energy transfer over fading channels when the base station (BS) with multiple antennas beamforms energy to a wireless sensor node. Our analytical and numerical results show that by using large transmitter arrays, the range of wireless power transfer can be increased while maintaining a target outage probability. We also observe and quantify that by using multi-antenna arrays at the BS, a lower downlink energy is required to get the same outage performance.