A Study on Inductive Power Transfer Through Ferromagnetic Pipe for Pipeline Inspection Robots

In Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) system through ferromagnetic media, a strong eddy current and high permeability in the ferromagnetic parts weaken a magnetic coupling between primary and secondary coil, thus degrades transmission efficiency. This paper analyzes the effect of ferromagnetic pipe interfacing between primary and secondary coil based on equivalent circuit model of IPT system. Magnetic field analysis is conducted to illustrate the effect of existence of ferromagnetic pipe using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Furthermore, a further discussion presents how to reduce both eddy current and magnetic shielding effect, and improve the efficiency by saturation techniques.