St Austell tech enterprise on mission to assist cost electrical boats remotely
A Cornish company is looking for ways to remotely charge electric boats.
Perpetual Research Consultancy, registered in St. Austell, Cornwall, aims to develop an advanced charging system for electric vessels using VHF technology that they believe could have a major impact on ship operations as it would reduce charging time and turnaround for electric survey vessels Submarine and offshore platform ships.
The company’s managing director, Dr. Mike Taylor said, “Wireless charging is already being used on electric ships, whether they are manned, remotely controlled, or fully autonomous.
“We believe that this technology can be vastly improved by developing a way to use FM frequencies for wireless charging. This would lead to an increase in the power transmission by an order of magnitude and lead to considerably shorter charging times. “
To support the company in its research and development, the EU-funded Marine-i funded the project.
Dr. Taylor added, “Having access to the latest research available through the Marine-i project has been a huge asset to this project.
“Working with technology experts from the University of Plymouth, we developed a three-step development process.
“The first step was to conduct experiments with different wire spool configurations and thoroughly evaluate their performance characteristics. A feasibility study followed to determine the impedance matching network requirements for the new system.
“In the final phase, the procurement costs for the key components were determined so that we can estimate the production costs of the system when it is manufactured to scale.”
Prof. Lars Johanning, Program Director of Marine-i, based in Hayle, Cornwall, said: “Electric ships will play a major role in future ship operations.
“A system that enables faster loading and thus faster turnaround times for ships would be a very attractive commercial proposition for operators. This unique new technology would therefore have a massive global market.”
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