Efficiency Investigation of a 400W Resonant Inductive Wireless Power Transfer System for Underwater Unmanned Vehicles

In this study, efficiency investigation of a 400W resonant inductive wireless power transfer (WPT) system for underwater unmanned vehicle applications will be presented. The main components of a resonant inductive WPT system are; power amplifier stage, primary (transmitter) coil & compensation capacitor, magnetic core & medium (sea water), secondary (receiver) coil & compensation capacitor and rectifier stage. In this work, the effect of each component to the power loss budget of a 400W-output-system will be shown. For each stage, methods to minimize power loss and hence boost the efficiency, will be proposed. The investigation and the proposed methods will be verified with simulations and experimental results.