Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) charging from powerlines

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones have recently gained popularity in various non-military applications. Power systems monitoring, especially high voltage powerlines inspection is one of the sectors where drones can be utilized. However, battery capacity limitations of medium scale drones present a serious problem for realizing their practical use in power systems sector. We propose one of the possible solutions for charging UAVs from the powerlines via a wireless power transfer technique. The experimental results demonstrate the potential benefits of the proposed approach.