An LCC-P Compensated Wireless Power Transfer System with a Constant Current Output and Reduced Receiver Size

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has been a research focus in recent years. This paper studies the inductor-capacitor-capacitor and parallel (LCC-P) compensation topology to achieve a compact receiver for AUVs. Unlike the series-series (SS) compensation topology, the LCC-P topology retains the advantages of the double-sided LCC topology and has a more compact receiver than the double-sided LCC topology with fewer elements used on the receiver side. The analytical model of such a WPT system is established to analyze the output power and transfer efficiency. The LCC-P topology has a higher efficiency compared to the SS topology due to the smaller conduction loss of the inverter. Moreover, a method of eliminating the DC filter inductor L-0 is proposed to further decrease the size and weight of the receiver. The amplitude of the withstanding voltage on the receiver compensation capacitor without L-0 is approximately decreased by 40% compared to that with L-0. Both cases of with and without L-0 have a constant current output and the peak efficiency without L-0 is about 94%, which is 1% lower than that with L-0. A prototype was built and the experimental results verified the theoretical analysis.