Development of high average power and high stability Gyro-TWT for industrial use

Abstract

Gyro-TWTs have been proved to be an attractive power source for use in applications such as high-resolution radars, high-power communication systems, and electronic warfare systems. For these devices, on the basis of satisfying the main characteristic of high efficiency, high power, wide band and high gain, a great deal of reliability requirements such as continuous stable working time, working lifetime, environmental adaptability and so on, should be met. Gyro-TWTs can be effectively employed for the industrial applications when these factors are well achieved. Among them, continuous stable working time is the most important. Devices with the ability of long time, stable high power output performance are required under the utilization of radars and communication systems. During the stable operation, it is also necessary to satisfy the requirements of fast frequency-modulated, frequency sweep, zero drive stability, and low breakdown rate, etc. Thus these requirements are leading us to develop of high stability, and high power Gyro-TWT. In this paper, detailed demonstration of development process, including theory analysis, multiphysics simulation of key components of tube, fabrication of the tube, and construction of automatic hot test platform for high average power safety test are presented. Finally, a Ka-band broadband (1dB relative bandwidth of 8%), high efficiency (>20%), high peak power (>100kW), high average power (>12kW), longtime stability non-stop working (>100h) industrial gyro-TWT is designed and used for radar system.