Drone charging stations over the buildings based on a wireless power transfer system

Abstract

Drone market is in the infancy stage although it is rapidly growing in the last years. In the next future, drones will be largely adopted in traditional economy sectors as well as for supporting emerging technologies. The main application problem is the limited flying range and, consequently, the need of performing many battery recharges during the time interval a drone performs its task. The large diffusion of recharging stations is a key factor in view of persistent operation without humans' intervention. This scenario leads promising business opportunities such as the development of a network of recharge stations on the roof of buildings. In this perspective, resonant wireless power transfer is the best enabling technology for the drone recharge station. One technical issue to be dealt with is the variability of the coupling factor due to the various misalignments that can occur between a drone and the supplying pad where it lands. This work proposes a current tuning mechanism that compensates for this variability in a single-inverter multi-pad charging station. The simulations performed through the Simscape Power Systems module in Simulink has confirmed the effectiveness of the used approach.