https://jjcit.org/paper/25 10.5455/jjcit.71-1483030287 Rula Alrawashdeh ICPT,MPT,PTE,UWICPT,WPT. 7 5477 2176 2016-12-29 2017-03-08 2017-04-02 Recently, the interest in wireless power transfer (WPT) has significantly increased due to its attractive applications. The power transfer efficiency and communication range of most of the existing WPT systems are still limited, which is due to many technical challenges and regulation limitations. This requires more research and technical efforts to overcome the current limitations and make WPT systems much more efficient and widely used. This paper aims at reviewing recent advances and research progress in the area of WPT for the purposes of addressing current challenges and future research directions. To obtain these purposes, an introduction to WPT is provided. Also, main research themes of WPT in free space and lossy media are discussed. Additionally, the benefits of using split ring resonators WPT in conducting lossy media are investigated. This will be very helpful to boost WPT in lossy media and inspire more optimized structures for further improvement.