Directed Energy Weapons Augmented Precision Guided Munitions Trade Study

To determine the feasibility of integrating a DEW on a traditional legacy KE platform IS4S proposes an initial trade study of existing legacy platforms that could be retrofit with a DEW or a combined reduced blast KE and DEW multifunction warhead to increase lethality. To accomplish this IS4S will leverage previous work based on the investigation of two promising technologies to generate the requisite electrical pulses necessary to drive the DEW source that meets the volume constraints of current legacy munitions that might be retrofit. The first approach is based on the use of parallel Ferro-Electric Generators coupled with a Vector Inversion Generator to drive a capacitive DEW load and would be ideal as the basis for the aforementioned multifunction warhead approach. The second approach uses the same VIG for power conditioning to drive a DEW but replaces the FEG with a battery based high frequency Field-Effect Transistor bank driving a resonant DC/DC transformer as the prime power source to produce outputs in excessive >500kV and suitable for driving a wider range of repetitive pulse longer engagement DEW sources.