Rethinking the Power Delivery Networks of Mobile Robots

There are complex power system design and architecture considerations in the power delivery networks (PDN) of mobile robots, autonomous vehicles, and distributed static robots. This is due to the variation in the battery power source voltage plus the broad variety of loads that may be part of a typical system, such as, high-power AI computing systems, motor drives, sensors, communication systems, logic boards, and processors to name a few. Also, there are EMI considerations that naturally arise from developing closely-packed and dense systems that use high-power switching regulators. The result is that robotics power systems face many challenges that are unique to this set of applications, and therefore new approaches are needed to address them. This article explores how the performance and design flexibility of advanced robotic power systems can be enhanced by leveraging fixed-ratio power converters and high-efficiency wide-input-range buck or buck-boost regulators.