A Novel S-Pickup for High Power Inductive Power Transfer Systems

Inductive power transfer (IPT) systems are widely used in transportation resort mostly in clean rooms and production lines. A typical IPT system is composed of a primary circuit -the litz-wired track, and a secondary circuit - the pickup with rectifier. The pickup is usually attached to a moving platform, and is designed to travel along the primary track. Depending on the power transfer requirements the pickup can be longer or shorter. For high power applications more than one pickup is required. One of the most frequently used pickups is an E-pickup, called after its shape. For example a 30kVA IPT system demands six 0.4m long E-pickups, which gives the total length of 2.4m. Such large pickups bring several disadvantages to the system. They are very heavy, and cause serious limitation for the platform to go over the curves. A new pickup, called the S-pickup can be used as a replacement to E-pickups. Compared to the E-pickup, the S-pickup is composed of the same amount of ferrite. However the S pickup delivers twice as much power. This digest delivers an explanation to this high power transfer phenomenon using the example of 30KVA IPT system.