A Photovoltaic and Battery-Driven Full-range Buck and Boost DC-DC Converters for the Drone Wireless Power Transmission System

Drones are increasingly employed for a wide range of applications, including military surveillance along national borders and the maintenance of telecommunications infrastructure in remote locations and inaccessible regions, where ensuring uninterrupted operation remains a major challenge due to the lack of reliable charging infrastructure. To address this limitation, this article proposes and experimentally validates an integrated three-port photovoltaic (PV)-battery-wireless power transfer (WPT) charging station for autonomous drone recharging in off-grid environments. PV panels are cost effective and sustainable power source for remote regions with WPT technology. The architecture combines solar PV generation with battery energy storage through coordinated DC-DC power conversion to provide a regulated DC-link for a high-frequency WPT interface, enabling contactless and maintenance-free drone charging. To maximize system efficiency and ensure optimal PV energy harvesting under variable irradiance conditions, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique is adopted for the PV panels, while a closed-loop proportional-integral controller ensures the DC voltage remains stable at the desired level under dynamic load and source variations. The battery energy management system enables bidirectional power flow by managing charging and discharging cycles, to buffer solar intermittency and ensure uninterrupted power delivery to the WPT subsystem. The performance of the complete system, including system design, control architecture, and power management strategy, is validated through detailed simulations and experimental results obtained from a laboratory-scale prototype. The results demonstrate robust dynamic performance, fast MPPT convergence, stable DC-link regulation, and reliable wireless power delivery, thereby confirming the feasibility and effectiveness of the hybrid PV-battery-powered WPT charging station for sustained drone operation in remote and challenging environments.