A Rectangular Double-Helix Receiver Coil for Wireless Charging of Drones

Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) for drones is an efficient form of charging to increase functionality of the drone. The design of the magnetic coupler, specifically the receiving coil is important. This coil is placed on the drone and is required to be lightweight, have a strong coupling, high efficiency, and a high misalignment tolerance. A ferrite-less rectangular double-helix receiver coil is proposed with a planar rectangular transmitter to meet these requirements. The proposed coupler achieves a 0.27 coupling coefficient and coil-to-coil efficiency of 97.88% while charging a drone with a battery capacity of 10000mAh at a nominal voltage of 22.2V. The coupler has excellent misalignment tolerance both in the direction of the x and y-axis.