Dynamic wireless power transfer system for the unmanned aerial vehicles

Tae Sup Lee, Purdue University

Abstract

UAVs have limitless applications to help our daily lives for the autonomous operations. UAVs have a limited power capacity due to weight constraints and are therefore not able to travel long distances. Ground stations for recharging UAVs throughout different points can increase the flight time of the UAVs with the current UAV battery capacity. This study investigates how the wireless charging system for the ground station can be made more robust when there are misalignments. The wireless charging system is monitored by an Arduino, micro controller, to assess the current condition of charging. The Arduino is able to change the capacitance of the wireless charging system to optimize the resonant frequency when misalignment occurs. The weight to fly of the UAV is limited and battery source power is the huge drawback. In order to increase the flight time, increasing battery run time, or position ground stations to recharge the UAV rapidly are possible methods. In this study method of improving the ground station's wireless recharging ability by using microprocessor to provide more dynamic recharging is explained. The ground station is equipped with an inductive charging system and successfully recharges the UAV. The ground station has been further improved to use magnetic resonant coupling to create better efficiency and wider controlling range. The resonant frequency is tunable by the Arduino, a micro processor, to change capacitance of varactors. By changing capacitance of the varactor, the magnetic resonant coupling wireless power transfer system can work in wider range from the ground station.

Degree

M.S.E.

Advisors

Ariyur, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Aerospace engineering|Electrical engineering|Computer science

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