Tethered aerial robots using contactless power systems for extended mission time and range

Abstract

Tethered aerial robots (TAR) that can be continuously powered by power cables for extended mission time and range are newly proposed. The TAR can overcome the limited mission time of conventional battery-based aerial vehicles and the mission range is quite extended with a virtue of a long aerial multi-wounded power cable. The TAR is equipped with an aerial contactless power system (ACPS) for avoiding the use of brush and an aerial tension control system (ATCS), first proposed in this paper, for avoiding tangled power cable. A prototype TAR including the ACPS and ATCS was developed and successfully demonstrated at outdoor environment, where the output power of 180 W at 100 kHz and a flight altitude of 20 m for 30 minutes were achieved.