Bidirectional inductive underwater wireless power transfer converter with variable structure

The undersea sensor networks have an important function in marine resource exploration. To prolong the lifetime of the sensor networks, a bidirectional inductive underwater wireless power transfer (BI-UWPT) system with variable structure is proposed. With the proposed system, the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) could receive energy from the undersea docking station and transmit energy to the undersea sensor networks. The two full bridge topologies and the SS compensation networks are adopted in the system to achieve the bidirectional power transfer. To achieve bidirectional energy transmission of different power levels, two different operating frequencies and variable compensation capacitors are employed by the AUV. The system mathematical model is also presented. To verify the theoretical analysis, a 432 W simulation model when the AUV receiving electric energy and a 96 W simulation model when the AUV transmitting electric energy are constructed, respectively. The theoretical analysis is verified by the simulation results. Simulation results show that the variable compensation networks can obtain high transfer efficiency of the BI-UWPT system.