Aeropropulsion and Power Technology

High power pulsed load applications impose a great challenge to the existing power sources in military applications. Such applications include radars, Directed-Energy Weapons (DEW), and Electronic Countermeasure systems. DEW systems are being developed for both ground and airborne applications. Typically, they consist of microwave or laser powered guns. Both the microwave application and the diode based laser applications require significant amount of power. This power ranges from hundreds of kilowatts for microwave applications to Megawatts for laser applications. The laser application requires that the full power be available for short duration, with short pauses in between. High power radars require between 100kW and 300kW of pulsed power. The load frequency varies between 300Hz and 2kHz and duty cycle has a range of 10% to 50%. The decoupling of pulsed power loads from the prime power poses significant challenges, and needs to be explored. Innovative solutions need to be explored to improve the AC bus power quality while providing high-speed performance, coupled with high packing densities consistent with airborne applications, in a cost-effective manner. Innovative Power Solutions, LLC (IPS) is proposing to explore the interaction between these systems and provide an optimal solution for controlling this class of Megawatt generators.