Realisation of DC-DC Converters for Active Phased Array Radar Applications

Abstract

Radio Frequency (RF) amplifier is one of the critical parts of any radar system. With the advances in semiconductor technology and especially with the availability of efficient wide band gap semiconductor devices like GaN, state-of-the-art radar systems have been advancing towards APARs (Active Phased Array Radars). Transmit Receive Modules (TRMs) are the main building blocks of APARs. TRMs are pulsed power loads requiring a constant voltage and pulsed current. Due to the constrained space availability for TRM power supplies in APARs operating at X-band and above, the power converters along with supplying the pulsed power with isolation need to have high power density (in excess of 6 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$W$</tex> /cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> ), and high efficiencies (in excess of 90%). This paper brings out the typical requirements for the TRM power supplies for state-of-the-art APARs and compares the capabilities of the current commercially available DC-DC converters and the way forward for the design of APAR converters.