Design and Analysis of Quasi-Omnidirectional Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer for Fly-and-Charge

Abstract

This paper proposes and implements a novel quasi-omnidirectional dynamic wireless power transfer (WPT) system using double 3-D coils for drone applications. In the traditional omnidirectional WPT system, the receiver direction is always facing the 3-D transmitter center to maximally pick up the magnetic flux. However, the on-drone receiver normally proceeds horizontal or vertical movements so that it is unable to fully utilize the magnetic flux and result in serious magnetic flux leakage. Thus, by newly proposing the 3-D intermediate coil and artfully aligning specific quadrant of double 3-D coils to the center of the flying area, the proposed WPT system can flexibly and efficiently power the drone in the specific space. Moreover, only one single power source is needed to drive the transmitter coil without using the sophisticated current phase control. Therefore, the proposed system can simultaneously achieve both quasi-omnidirectional WPT and dynamic WPT for the drone so that its flying time can be significantly extended. The theoretical, simulated, and experimental results are given to validate the feasibility of the proposed WPT system.