A wireless fully automated charging station with IoT-based remote monitoring for unmanned aerial vehicles

Purpose This study aims to build and test a low-cost autonomous wireless charging station for small rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) whose Internet of things telemetry layer lets charging be supervised remotely. Design/methodology/approach A commercial inductive module feeds a step-up converter and a 3S protection board and an ESP32 pushes JavaScript Object Notation telemetry at 5 Hz over its own access point to a Flutter ground control station. The link is characterised analytically, then ten charge cycles, a misalignment sweep and ten stability sessions measured. Findings Transmitter-rail-to-battery efficiency was 70.10 ± 0.55 %, the inductive link accounting for 2.8 W of the 3.08 W lost. Charging current held above 90 % of its centred value to 5 mm and reached zero at 15 mm, the collapse beyond that band being converter drop-out rather than lost coupling. Latency was 199.6 ± 2.85 ms at 0.027 % packet loss. Research limitations/implications One airframe, one pad and one client, indoors. Electromagnetic compatibility, avionics interference, outdoor conditions and communication security were not characterised and the fly-land-recharge loop was not closed. Practical implications Four UAVs and three pads give uninterrupted coverage of the missions modelled and retrofitting costs about 30 g of electronics rather than a coil alone. Originality/value Commercial drone-in-a-box products already offer remote supervision; what is new is an openly documented low-cost integration pattern a small team can rebuild, with supervisory performance the literature does not measure.