Wireless Power Transfer System Design with Power Management Strategy Control for Lunar Rover

To avoid heat leakage from a lunar rover during lunar night, this paper proposes a wireless power transfer (WPT) system to replace the wire connection between the PV panel and rover body. The WPT system is powered by a PV panel, and the generated power can be transferred to the rover body via magnetic coupling. The rover side load is connected with a DC bus, and its voltage is stabilized by a DC-DC converter. Based on this topology, a power management strategy for the proposed WPT system is also proposed. According to the variation in the solar irradiance and rover side power requirement, the PV panel can be controlled in different working modes automatically to output the appropriate power. A 45-W experimental platform is established, and the experimental results show that the proposed system can automatically switch the working mode based on the solar irradiance and power requirement. When the power is 45 W, the total efficiency of the system is approximately 75%. The experimental results show that the proposed WPT system and power management strategy are effective and can be employed in the future.