Design and Development of High-Voltage High-Pulse Power Supply Using FPGA for Dynamic Impedance Matching

Abstract

High-voltage high-pulse power supply (HVHPPS) is designed with the goal to match fixed load, so that precise pulse output can be achieved. Generally, the loads involve magnetron, klystron, and particle accelerators. The HVHPPS output pulse shape changes with load impedance variation due to various reasons. Due to the changes in impedance, the performance of pulse power supply degrades and reflects the power at the source end, which causes component failure and system shut down. To overcome such problems, a scale down high voltage high-pulse power is designed and developed to match the dynamic impedance variations. In earlier days, all HVHPPS were designed using microcontrollers, where the problem of pulse to pulse monitoring and computational speed was compromised. The availability of variable and self-defined, field-programmable gate array (FPGA) controller, which provided flexibility to design the pulse to pulse shaping and various vital parameters monitoring, made it possible. This article presents the design and implementation of HVHPPS over an FPGA platform to meet the fast response requirement. This article provides a solution for impedance mismatch problems associated with such types of power supply and also presents specifications for major components in a high-voltage pulse power system for various types of load ranges. An experimental test hardware was designed and developed for HVHPPS to implement dynamic impedance algorithm and validate the results.