Wireless charging of unmanned aerial vehicles
The presently disclosed embodiments generally relate to systems, devices, and methods for sensing and charging of electronic devices using coils. In some embodiments, the presently disclosed system can include a pad, a charging foot, and a backpack. The pad can include one or more nested coils therein that can sense one or more corresponding receiver coils of an unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that landed thereon. The nested coils of the pad can provide charging energy to the UAV independent of the location along the pad in which the UAV landed, and no precise alignment between the receiver coils and the charging coils is required. The charging foot can be attached to one or more legs of the UAV, and can include a receiver coil and circuitry to regulate energy received by the coil to a charging voltage level that can be provided to the battery.
1. An autonomous charging pad for aerial vehicles, comprising:
a controller circuit configured to determine a location of one or more aerial vehicles and/or one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles relative to the charging pad based on a pattern of a plurality of received sense voltages;
an array of sensing tiles in communication with the controller circuit, each sensing tile including:
one or more driven coils configured to produce magnetic signals in response to drive coils, and
one or more passive sense coils configured to receive at least one of the magnetic signals produced by the driven coils and to produce at least one of the sense voltages as a function of a proximity of the sensing tile to one of the one or more aerial vehicles and/or one of the one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles; and
an array of charging coils forming a layer separate from and stacked with respect to the array of sensing tiles, the array of charging coils configured to deliver power to the one or more aerial vehicles and/or the one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles positioned at the location determined by the controller circuit.
2. The charging pad of claim 1 , wherein the charging pad is configured to create a plurality of electromagnetic charging fields based on a number of the one or more aerial vehicles and a corresponding detected type of each of the one or more aerial vehicles.
3. The charging pad of claim 1 , wherein one or more radio frequency fingerprinting algorithms are implemented to authenticate the one or more aerial vehicles and to detect a corresponding type of each of the one or more aerial vehicles using wireless signals from at least one other of the one or more aerial vehicles.
4. The charging pad of claim 1 , further comprising (i) one or more arrays of reconfigurable RF transceivers; and (ii) one or more reconfigurable power management circuits.
5. A method for charging aerial vehicles by a charging pad comprising:
determining, by a controller circuit, a location of one or more aerial vehicles and/or one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles relative to the charging pad based on a pattern of a plurality of received sense voltages;
producing, by one or more driven coils of at least one sensing tile of an array of sensing tiles in communication with the controller circuit, magnetic signals in response to drive coils, wherein each sensing tile of the array of sensing tiles includes the one or more of the driven coils;
receiving, by one or more passive sense coils of the at least one sensing tile of the array of sensing tiles, at least one of the magnetic signals produced by the driven coils, wherein each sensing tile of the array of sensing tiles includes the one or more of the sense coils;
producing, by the one or more sense coils of the at least one sensing tile of the array of sensing tiles in communication with the controller circuit, at least one of the sense voltages as a function of a proximity of the at least one sensing tile to one of the one or more aerial vehicles and/or one of the one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles; and
delivering power, by at least one charging coil of an array of charging coils, to the one or more aerial vehicles and/or the one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles positioned at the location determined by the controller circuit, wherein the array of charging coils forms a layer separate from and stacked with respect to the array of sensing tiles.
6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising generating, by the charging pad, a plurality of electromagnetic charging fields based on a number of the one or more aerial vehicles and a corresponding detected type of each of the one or more aerial vehicles.
7. The method of claim 5 , further comprising implementing radio frequency fingerprinting algorithms to authenticate the one or more aerial vehicles and to detect a corresponding type of each of the one or more aerial vehicles using wireless signals from at least one other of the one or more aerial vehicles.
8. The method of claim 5 , further comprising transmitting, by one or more RF transceivers of the at least one sensing tile, control messages to the one or more aerial vehicles and/or the one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles positioned at the location determined by the controller circuit.
9. The method of claim 5 , wherein the step of delivering power further comprises controlling, by a power management module of the controller circuit, a multiplexed plurality of charging coils of the array of charging coils to deliver the power to the one or more aerial vehicles and/or the one or more legs of the one or more aerial vehicles positioned at the location determined by the controller circuit.
10. The method of claim 5 , further comprising charging a battery of the one or more aerial vehicles using the power delivered by the at least one charging coil.