Wireless Power Transfer System for Linear Drives

We describe a wireless power transfer (WPT) system for linear drives based on inductive resonant coupling. The system is capable of continuously transmitting power from the transmitter to the receiver coil, independent from its motion or position. The paper proposes a solution and presents its rigorous analysis by means of 2-D and 3-D FEM simulations. 2-D and 3-D FEM simulations are combined in order to compute the parameters of the coupling coils. The obtained solutions are further optimized in Matlab by connecting an optimization algorithm of Linear Regression with a circuit model. A prototype of one optimized solution has been built and tested. The presented comparison of the measured and simulated results reveal a high level of agreement. The selected technology appears promising to achieve the desired goals and further optimizations should be performed in order to find the most effective wireless power transfer system for the proposed application.