A Circular-Arc-Type Magnetic Coupler with Strong Misalignment Tolerance for AUV Wireless Charging System

Abstract

The wireless charging system (WCS) is widely employed to solve the problem of underwater charging of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). However, the AUV is prone to misalignment caused by the tidal currents, which directly leads to fluctuations in transmission efficiency and output power. For this reason, a circular-arc-type (CA-type) magnetic coupler with strong misalignment tolerance was proposed in this article. Compared with the ring-type magnetic coupler, the proposed magnetic coupler had better magnetic field convergence and lower weight. Further, the effect of dimensional parameters on the CA-type magnetic coupler performance was analyzed by ANSYS Maxwell, with which the parameters of the magnetic coupler were optimized, and its coupling coefficient could finally reach 0.671. To analyze the influence of misalignment on the CA-type magnetic coupler, EE-type and UI-type magnetic cores are compared. Within the same range of rotation misalignment [−10°, 10°] and axial misalignment [−30, 30 mm], the CA-type magnetic core has stronger misalignment adaptability, and it can achieve a stable output power of 575 W and DC-DC efficiency of 92.51% when rotational misalignment occurs. A WCS experimental prototype is built based on one of the magnetic couplers and its experimental results verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis and simulation results.