An Underwater Anti-Misalignment UPT System Based on Array Transducers

Ultrasonic wireless power transfer technology can penetrate metal media for power transfer without generating electromagnetic interference and eddy current loss, which has promising applications in wireless power transfer for underwater vehicles. This article establishes a mathematical model of sound field and introduces the directional function. The impact of the array parameters on beam focusing performance is simulated and analyzed. To address the shortcoming of single-element ultrasonic power transfer (UPT) systems, an array transducer with a multi-to-one structure is proposed, which improves anti-misalignment capability of the system. A novel UPT system with the LC impedance matching network is designed. The experimental results on the angle deviation between the transducer array of the multi-to-one structure are analyzed. Compared to the one-to-one structure, the multi-to-one structure not only improves the transfer efficiency of the system to 72.4%, but also effectively suppresses the loss caused by receiver offsets on the system.