Progress in the development of a battery-based pulsed power system

The development of compact, portable pulsed power devices is of continuing interest, and recent technological developments such as high-energy-density capacitors, the emergence of SiC high-power devices, and the combined high power and energy density in electrochemical energy storage devices present an opportunity to use these technologies in applications of interest, such as high power lasers, railguns, and microwave systems. Several challenges exist when attempting to integrate these emerging devices into the development of a compact rep-rate pulsed-power system. These include but are not limited to the input power management, DC-DC converter efficiencies, and thermal management. This paper discusses the development of a battery-powered, rep-rate charger for a 60-kJ capacitor bank, and the desire to study the feasibility of such a system, especially the efficiency and reliability of the battery packs. This paper will discuss the system design and results from experiments to date.