Development and Test of 500 kV Repetitive Pulsed Power Source for HPM Application

Abstract

A compact peaking capacitor-based 500 kV, 10 kA, 100 Hz repetition rate pulsed power source has been designed and developed for high-power microwave applications. This system utilizes a 500 kV, 1.9 nF peaking capacitor to deliver the nanosecond pulse with a peak current of 10 kA. An eight-stage bipolar Marx generator (MG) with 35 kV charging voltage is used for driving this peaking capacitor. The design was carried out by an analytical approach and confirmed by simulation for the MG with and without peaking capacitors using PSpice software. The simulated results were compared to study the enhancement of voltage pulse using a peaking capacitor. The system was developed and tested experimentally with and without a peaking capacitor with different load impedances. The experimental results show the merits of peaking capacitor implementation. The system is suitable for driving HPM load at a high repetition rate with less input energy than similar systems.