Abstract
Drones can be used in agriculture applications to monitor crop yield and climate conditions and to extend the communication range of wireless sensor networks in monitoring areas. However, monitoring the climate conditions in agriculture applications faces challenges and limitations, such as drone flight time, power consumption, and communication distance, which are addressed in this study. Wireless power transfer (WPT) can be used to charge drone batteries. WPT using a magnetic resonant coupling (MRC) technique was considered in this study because it allows high transfer power and efficiency with tens of centimeters, power transfers can be achieved in misalignment situations, charging several devices simultaneously, and unaffected by weather conditions. WPT was practically implemented based on a solar cell using a proposed flat spiral coil (FSC) in the transmitter circuit and multiturn coil (MTC) in a receiver circuit (drone) for the alignment and misalignment of two coils at different distances. FSC and MTC improved power transfer and efficiency to 20.46 W and 85.25%, respectively, at 0 cm with the loaded system under alignment condition. In addition, the two coils achieved appropriate transfer efficiencies and power for charging the drone battery under misaligned conditions. The maximum power transfer and efficiency were 17.1 W and 71% for the misalignment condition, at an air gap of 1 cm between two coils when the system was loaded with the drone battery. Moreover, the battery life of the drone was extended to 851 minutes based on the proposed sleep/active strategy relative to the traditional operation (i.e., 25.84 minutes). Consequently, a 96.9% battery power saving was achieved based on this strategy. Comparison results showed that the proposed system outperformed some present techniques in terms of the transfer power, transfer efficiency, and drone battery life. The proposed WPT technique developed in this study has been proven to solve the misalignment issue. Thus it offers a great opportunity as a key deployment component for the automation of farming practices toward the Internet of Farming applications.
Highlights
Drones can be used in the agriculture field [1]–[3] to monitor crop yield and climate conditions and to extend theThe associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was el-Hadi M
Campi et al [22] proved the feasibility of the magnetic resonant coupling (MRC)/Wireless power transfer (WPT) charging system applied to a demonstrative drone that could be used in various applications
The results from several test cases are presented which include (i) alignment with load (MTC-one tape), (ii) misalignment with load (MTC-one tape), and (iii) drone flight time and battery life results
Summary
Drones can be used in the agriculture field [1]–[3] to monitor crop yield and climate conditions and to extend the. The WPT technique should ensure high transfer power efficiency and misalignment tolerance between the transmitter and receiver coils of the WPT system. The secondary or receiver coil mounted on the drone, i.e., multiturn coil (MTC) that is 60 coil turns with 40 cm diameter and 0.51 mm (AWG 24) wire thickness To this end, a drone is charged based on a new WPT system design. (iii) The power consumption and battery life of the dronebased agriculture application were formulated and modeled This involved measurement from the magnetic resonator coupling WPT prototype that charges the drone’s battery when the drone is on the landing position in the charging station after each agriculture mission. Performance comparisons are made with other techniques in previous studies, in terms of transfer power and transfer efficiency under the alignment scenario
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