Misalignment Insensitive Wireless Power Transfer System Using a Hybrid Transmitter for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Compared to air surroundings, the marine environment is not stable due to the influence of ocean currents and other factors. Misalignments always occur inevitably when autonomous underwater vehicles are charging wirelessly in the docking station. Therefore, misalignment insensitive underwater wireless power transfer system need to be investigated. In this article, a novel hybrid transmitter composed of conical and planar spiral coils is proposed that greatly improves the misalignment tolerance and transfer performance. First, the coil tilt angle theory (CTAT) is presented and verified to determine the optimum tilt angle of conical coil. Then, based on the CTAT, a circular uniform magnetic field zone with a diameter of 30 cm in charging plane can be achieved by flexibly designing the hybrid transmitter. Moreover, a three-dimensional finite-element simulation software is employed to study the eddy current loss under different circumstances. Finally, experimental results show that the proposed transmitter has better performance in output power and power transfer efficiency (PTE) stability within the possible working region compared with conventional transmitters. It has demonstrated that the output power changes only within 5.7% and the PTEs maintain at approximately 86% in excessive misalignment area with transfer distance of 2 cm.