Development of a Fit-to-Surface and Lightweight Magnetic Coupler for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Wireless Charging Systems

A novel magnetic coupler (MC) with cross-coupling mode is proposed in this article, which has merits of fit-to-surface and lightweight in receiver, and supports stable and efficient charging for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The proposed magnetic structure employing an arc bipolar transmitter and a compact dipole-coil-based receiver utilizes horizontal flux to establish strong and stable coupling against three-dimensional misalignment; the MC structure is constructed and optimized according to the magnetic field distribution characteristics. The influence of geometric parameters on the MC's performance is obtained based on ANSYS Maxwell simulation, with which the parameters of MC are optimized. In order to fully verify the performance of the designed MC, an AUV wireless charging system circuit is also developed. A wireless charging system prototype is built and tested with a 600 g receiver, and it can deliver 1 kW at a dc-to-dc efficiency of 95.1%. The experimental results under various operating conditions indicate that the proposed MC is viable and can be used for charging the AUVs.