MOUNA: An Autonomous, Compact, High-Power, and Wideband Electromagnetic Source Based on a Novel Resonant Pulsed Transformer

Nowadays, a broad range of modern defense applications requires compact pulsed power generators to produce high-power electromagnetic waves. In a conventional design, such generators consist of a primary energy source and an antenna, separated by a power-amplification system, such as a Marx generator or a Tesla transformer, which forwards the energy from the source to the antenna. The present system, however, uses a novel and very compact high-voltage resonant pulsed transformer to drive a dipole antenna. The complete pulsed power source, termed MOUNA (French acronym for “Module Oscillant Utilisant une Nouvelle Architecture”), is composed of a set of batteries, a dc/dc converter for charging four capacitors, four synchronized spark gap switches, a resonant pulsed transformer that can generate 555 kV/265 ns pulses, an oil peaking switch and, during preliminary testing, a dipole antenna. The paper not only provides design details for each system component, but also presents the mechanical arrangement of the complete pulsed power system and the electrical diagnostics, particularly those related to measurement of the resonant transformer output waveform, the line oscillations, and the radiated electric field.