Research Projects

Wireless power transfer (WPT) is the method to transfer power from source to load without use of cables or wires. Microwave WPT is an efficient way to transfer power compared to laser, since microwave are less prone to scattering and conversion of microwave energy to electrical energy and vice-versa is well established. Presently the typical fly time of the small commercial drones/quadcopters is 5-8 minutes and the operations needs to be discontinued to charge the batteries. Using WPT, the power can be supplied from the charging platform 24x7, thus ensuring the continuous operations. To increase the power transfer to a large distance, artificial material called metamaterial (MM) is being used. MM has negative refractive index. Now day’s MM having parabolic refractive index profile, i.e., gradient refractive index lens metamaterial are also being used, thus helping in concentrating the power to a particular area where the receiver can be kept. Parabolic dish reflector and novel design of antenna as a feed can be designed which has higher gain and lower half power beam width. The total transmission system viz, antenna, parabolic dish and metamaterial can be used for increasing the efficiency of WPT to drones. IoT protocol can be used for communicating the status of the battery, power received in real time scenario.

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Light weight receiver antenna is designed and fabricated which will be integrated with the drone, robot or aerostat. The light weight parabolic dish reflector (PDR) is made from the flexible Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate and coated with aluminium layer by thermal evaporation. The light weight PDR will help to gather the radiation and focus at the focal point where the patch antenna is kept.

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JV Micronics, Faridabad; MTRDC, Bengaluru