I-Corps: Radio Frequency Beamforming for Wireless Drone Charging

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是创造无线充电器，这是最终采用程序化/半自动商业无人机使用所必需的。这些充电器直接解决了无人机电池容量的巨大挑战，并以与汽车和卡车加油站相同的容量提供服务。鉴于人们对将无人机技术用于油气、电信和公用事业资产检查等历史上危险和繁重的活动的兴趣迅速增长，该平台可能成为最终无人机基础设施的关键部分。无线充电本质上是一种清洁的电力传输方法；通过支持更清洁的技术，如电动多用途机，而不是燃料驱动的固定翼无人机，我们的平台将成为未来节能的主要促进剂。这个i-Corps项目成功地演示了使用射频(RF)波束成形的长距离无线电力传输。一个具有多个天线和一个能量收集器的工作原型已经开发出来，它使用软件定义的无线电成功地使用射频波束形成进行远程无线充电。为了将系统扩展到向无人机提供无线能量，提出了一种具有多天线的大规模MIMO发射机。每个天线的信号都会建设性地干扰其他天线，在无人机方向提供高效的波束形成功率增益，无人机改装了整流器，将电磁能量转换为可用直流电，为电池充电。只要无人机在视线范围内，充电器就可以在40到60英尺的范围内无线供电，同时还假设适当补偿天线的相互耦合。无人机规模的发射机和接收机结构已经设计完成，需要进一步实现数字信号处理软件、系统并行化和大功率整流电路，才能实现完整的波束形成解决方案。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to create wireless chargers, which are necessary for the eventual adoption of programmatic/semi-autonomous commercial drone usage. These chargers directly address the significant challenge of drone battery capacity, and serve in the same capacity as gas stations do for cars and trucks. Given the rapidly growing interest in the use of drone technology for historically dangerous and onerous activities such as oil & gas, telecom, and utility asset inspection, the platform could become a key part of the eventual drone infrastructure. Wireless charging is inherently a clean method of power transmission; by enabling cleaner technologies, such as electric multicopters, rather than fuel-powered fixed-wing drones, our platform will be a major accelerant for energy savings in the future.This I-Corps project successfully demonstrates long-distance wireless power transfer using Radio Frequency (RF) beamforming. A working prototype with multiple antennas and an energy harvester that exhibits successful long-range wireless charging using RF beamforming has been developed using software defined radios. In order to scale the system to deliver wireless power to drones, a massive MIMO transmitter with multiple antennas is proposed. Each antenna's signal constructively interferes with the others, providing an efficiently beamformed power gain in the direction of the drone, which is retrofitted with a rectifier to convert the electromagnetic energy to usable direct current to charge the battery. Provided the drones are within line-of-sight, the chargers can deliver power wirelessly from up to 40 to 60 feet, also assuming proper compensation of the mutual coupling from the antennas. The transmitter and receiver architectures at the scale of drones have been fully designed, and require further implementation of the digital signal processing software, system parallelization, and high-power rectifying circuit to realize the full beamforming solution.