Prospects of Capacitive Wireless Power Transfer (C-WPT) for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are changing the face of many real world applications ranging from war zones to farming. This paper introduces a wireless charging method that employs a capacitive wireless charging scenario for an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) via a master/slave arrangement. This will increase the flight autonomy and range of UAVs thus making it more productive. A 150 mm ×170 mm plate pair for wirelessly charging a drone battery is studied with different dielectrics. Finally, a comparison of different configurations of capacitive plate interface is outlined based on the simulation results.