2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Wireless Power Transfer System for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles in Seawater

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	16K18067
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Power engineering/Power conversion/Electric machinery
Research Institution	Tokai University
Principal Investigator	Inamori Mamiko 東海大学, 工学部, 准教授 (70571222)
Research Collaborator	Ariffin Assyfa Binti Kameyoshi Hidenori Shimazaki Yoshihiro Shinohara Toshiya
Project Period (FY)	2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
Keywords	無線電力伝送 / 水中 / 伝送効率 / アンテナ / インピーダンス
Outline of Final Research Achievements	The vehicles for undersea exploration such as autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles have been actively developed. The power for the vehicles is supplied with cables from the surface. With applying wireless power transmission system and charge battery in undersea, the working hours and range expand. However, it is not clear that wireless power transmission system in air can be used in seawater. The power efficiency in saline water is decreased. In this research, power transmission experiment has been done in saline water, deionized water and air. Experimental results show that transmission efficiency in saline water is approximately 5% lower than that of in air. In saline water, loss that is caused by salinity of water appear on transmission loss. This loss is caused by the complex dielectric constant and the conductivity of saline water. In this research, the efficiency between antennas has been investigated.
Free Research Field	電力伝送、無線通信、信号処理
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	海底調査に用いられる自律型無人潜水機(AUV)ではできるだけ短時間で電力供給およびデータ取得をすることが求められている。しかし、電気を長期的に供給するにはバッテリーでは限界がある. 一方，ケーブルを用いずに無接点または無線で電力を供給する無線電力伝送が注目を集めており、AUV等への充電方式として無線電力伝送を使うことが考えられている。空中での無線電力伝送で使用されている無線電力伝送システムは空気中での使用を前提としたものであり、海水中での使用が考慮されていない。また、海水中では損失が増加する。本研究成果により、海中における電力伝送の影響を明らかにすることでAUVへの高効率な充電が可能になる。