Power Conditioning for Explosive Pulsed Power for Missiles and Munitions

The objective of this research and development effort is to create the critical power conditioning elements that are integral to munitions capable of generating electronic kill mechanisms in addition to blast, and impact damage. Inherent in the design of the conditioning elements, is the requirement that they must be capable of sustaining severe g-loading as a result of the launch process that delivers the munitions to its target. At present, we are aware of no ultra-compact, diameter on order of 1 inch, explosive driven pulsed power system that is capable of hundreds kilovolts output voltage at hundreds of megawatts levels. We propose to develop a unique ferroelectric explosive generator charging a vector inversion generator to generate a high voltage, nanoseconds rise time, shock hardened power supply. The total unit contains the energy source, power conditioning, and requisite switching and is fabricated in an inherently shock-hard way. The significance of this work is that it is possible to build an ultra compact single shot/multiple shot highly efficient explosive driven electrical pulse generator that is robust and with sufficient power and energy to drive a variety of RF converters. These units have numerous applications in impulse radar, flash x-ray systems.