Unity power factor inductive power transfer pick-up for high power applications

This paper describes the design of a new unity power factor inductive power transfer (IPT) pick-up using an LCL tuned network for application in high power systems. This new topology has the potential to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of high power pick-ups by minimizing the reactive currents in the pick-up coil and reflected VAR loading on the power supply. In a practical system the rectifier and associated processing circuitry distorts the current waveforms, adding an effective inductive load to the circuit. A series compensation capacitance is added to correct this distortion. A design strategy is developed for the new topology and two example circuits are constructed and compared experimentally with a traditional parallel tuned (LC) pick-up operating on a monorail based IPT system.