A Novel Designed Load Adaptive Noncontact Wet-Mate Connector for Subsea Devices

摘要

Wet-mate connectors enable subsea devices to have power and data transferred simultaneously. Conventional wet-mate connectors must strictly demand watertightness and consequently have a limited number of mating cycles and are costly. This paper proposed a novel noncontact wet-mate connector based on inductive power transfer technology, which is safer, more durable, and less expensive. Structure, power transfer, and data transfer designs are introduced, and a series-parallel compensating topology is applied in the power circuits for load adaptability. A simultaneous power and data transfer experiment is conducted on a 48 VDC/400 W prototype connector, which demonstrates the prototype connector to have a stable output voltage of 48 V, a power transfer efficiency over 80%, and a data transfer rate of over 2 MB/s.