Inductive Power Projection (IPP) has developed a MHz-frequency wireless, inductive charging solution (MHz-WPT) aimed at efficiently transferring power bidirectionally between vehicles and charge stations.
We use a much lower weight coil on the vehicle, and overall a lower cost system, than has been seen previously in inductive charging solutions, and partly for that reason we’re targeting UAVs as our first commercial application of MHz-WPT.
Conventional WPT technology uses copper coils, which are limited to maybe 85 kHz power transmission frequencies due to skin effect, and while using increased turns of copper, or ferrite cores can both increase performance, they add weight and bulk, meaning diminishing returns.
By contrast, our patented metal/dielectric hybrid ring resonator technology can be constructed from a variety of materials.
The company started its development using prototypes with copper-plated steel tubes and sintered ceramic dielectrics, and today it has incorporated a dielectric portion to achieve 13.56 MHz power transmission frequencies, meaning charging rates up to 2 kW.
The design of the MHz-WPT solution is additionally optimised to minimise power transmission to adjacent foreign bodies, lessening or removing the need for foreign object detection near the UAV and charging module. It can also transfer power through water for USV, UUV and other marine applications.
IPP is also developing a sapphire-based design for future commercialisation, which should be capable of up to 50 kW wireless charging rates.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/inductive-power-projection/
