SBIR Phase I: Automated Guided Vehicle Wireless Charging Network

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to increase the uptime of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and similar robotic systems to nearly one hundred percent at factories and fulfillment centers to further improve productivity and reduce overhead costs. These systems currently experience downtime when they need to be recharged off the assembly, production, or delivery route. The proposed technology develops a distributed wireless charging network that can charge AGVs and similar robotic systems dynamically or while they are in use.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will further the development of switching amplifiers to operate over wide reflected impedance ranges with high intrinsic quality antennas, and the developmet of receiver systems that handle dynamic power ranges. The project will also establish the first distributed network of wireless charging transmitters and nodes programmed and monitored collectively as a single functional unit to maintain the battery capacity of an AGV. The anticipated technical results of this Phase I project are to develop a distributed wireless charging network with multiple transmitters and nodes for AGVs along a test track such that it starts and ends with the same battery capacity after every full lap around the track, verifying the technical viability of the system in the marketplace.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.