Monitoring of High-Power Microwave Tube Systems Using the Integrated Condition Assessment System (ICAS)

Abstract

Abstract : In the earlier phases of the Microwave Tube Built-In Test (MTBIT) program (1999-2001), a new advanced nondestructive testing technique was demonstrated using acoustic emission (AE) for in-situ monitoring of normal and abnormal performance of high- power radar tubes such as magnetrons, traveling wave tubes (TWTs), and klystrons. This report details the next step in transitioning the laboratory MTBIT system into a system that is compatible with condition-based maintenance systems employing the Integrated Condition Assessment System (ICAS) used by the Fleet. This report identifies the interface requirements for the sensors and ICAS, as well as accommodating limitations of the ICAS software, which currently is not configured to accommodate the sensor data rates and data sets required. Ten new electronic circuits were designed, built, and tested to interface the outputs of the current sensor and acoustic emission sensor attached to a magnetron through an OPTO22 digital and analog input/output (I/O) hardware along with its Optomux protocol, and the ICAS software (Version 4.11). The complete computerized system to monitor the in-situ performance of the high-power microwave tube was developed, tested, and reported here. The system could be extended to achieve the same goal with other microwave tubes such as TWTs and klystrons with minor modifications.