A Comprehensive Evaluation of Magnetic Coupler Configurations for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Wireless Power Transfer Systems

Unmanned aerial vehicles, which are widely used today, require human assistance to meet their energy needs. This dependency disrupts autonomous operation. At this point, wireless power transfer technology offers a promising solution for full autonomy. These vehicles can be easily charged by contactless power transfer between magnetic couplers in seemingly impossible locations. Coupler configurations are critical due to the size constraints of these vehicles. In current studies, analyses of transfer efficiency are conducted using one or two parameters. In this study, in addition to the coupler configuration, the effects of air gap, duty cycle, and magnetic core on efficiency were analyzed together. The performance of couplers with rectangular, circular, and double-D configurations was investigated through comprehensive simulations and experiments. The AC and DC efficiencies of the wireless power transfer system were analyzed by performing 46 experiments, while the operating frequency of the system was between 95 and 105 kHz, the input power was around 250 W. Simulations of the system and couplers were performed in MATLAB and Ansys. In the experiments, the highest AC efficiency was 98.9%, and the DC efficiency was 86.7%. The error margins in MATLAB and Ansys models are less than 1% and 4%, respectively.