Two-Dimensional Inductive Power Transfer System for Mobile Robots Using Evenly Displaced Multiple Pickups

Abstract

The inductive power transfer system for mobile robots, which has the single wire layer of easily fabricable power floor structure and the evenly displaced multiple pickup structure for receiving uniform power, is proposed. Due to its simple structure, a wide-area power floor of 3.52 m(2) (1.6 m x 2.2 m) could be fabricated as a prototype. Three pickups with evenly displaced angle and space are adopted, considering the limited bottom area of the free-moving mobile robot. The size and position of each pickup are appropriately selected for the given subwinding size of the power floor and magnetic pole arrangement. Experiments for the prototype show that the proposed multiple pickup structure lowers the spatial output power variation and that enough output power of 10 W can be obtained for the mobile robots.