A 5 kW Hull-Compatible Inductive Charging System with 360° Folded Spatial Unipolar Coupler for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)

Amr Mostafa, Yao Wang, Sekhar Tangirala, Hua Zhang, Fei Lu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Inductive power transfer (IPT) for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) presents many advantages compared to conductive solutions that require the vessel to be recovered from water in each charging cycle. This article proposes a novel 360° folded spatial unipolar coil structure adapting to a cylinder AUV body shape, aiming at low leakage magnetic field and good rotational misalignment tolerance. The finite element analysis (FEA)-based coupler design procedure is presented, and a 5 kW WPT system is implemented with an LCC-S compensation and a strong coupling coefficient of 0.735. The implemented prototype is tested in air, fresh water, and saltwater. The system shows good rotational misalignment and retains 82.9% of well-aligned power along 360° rotation. A peak power of 5.18 kW is achieved with 96.8% dc-dc efficiency in saltwater, and the performance in freshwater and air presents an efficiency of 96.8% and 96.9%, respectively, which shows a slight impact of the medium in a strongly coupled underwater IPT system. This article is accompanied by a multimedia video material demonstrating the structure and working principle of the proposed coupler.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)7001-7012
Number of pages12
JournalIEEE Transactions on Industry Applications
Volume59
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1 2023
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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