Samueli School of Engineering

Drone operation time is constrained by battery capacity and the need for manual recharging. This project developed an autonomous wireless charging station based on resonant inductive coupling. A two-stage inverter operating at 166.7 kHz drives the coupled coils, and the received power is rectified and buck-regulated to 8.4 V for the battery rail. This confirms end-to-end power transfer through the full chain; however, charging does not start when the battery is connected, indicating a load-dependent issue such as insufficient current delivery. Future work will characterize the system under load and implement appropriate charge control to enable reliable battery charging.