A Wide Pulse-Repetitive-Frequency Range Pulsed Power Supply With Improved Dynamic Response and Efficiency

The transmitter/receiver modules in active phased array radar systems is powered by a pulsed power supply (PPS). In this article, an active capacitor converter (ACC) based PPS is adopted for wide pulse repetition frequency (PRF) range, and the design method is presented to minimize the output capacitance and storage capacitance. Since the demand of the storage capacitance is inversely proportional to the PRF, the ACC is redundant at high PRF, and thus, a smart disabling control of the ACC is proposed to shut down the ACC at high PRF to improve the efficiency of the PPS. To suppress the PRF ripple in the input current, the bandwidth of the voltage loop of the PPS is designed to be very slow, which leads to poor dynamic response. To address this issue, the dynamic response enhancement control strategies are proposed, including the output current feedforward control and the output voltage limiting control. Finally, a prototype of the PPS with pulsed power of 2.8 kW and PRF ranging from 50 Hz to 2 kHz is fabricated and tested in the lab. The experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the control strategies of the PPS with wide PRF range.