A Battery Powered, 200-KW Rapid Capacitor Charger for a Portable Railgun in Burst Mode Operation at 3 RPS

A portable power supply is being developed to rapidly charge the capacitor bank of a low velocity railgun system for countermeasure deployment from aircraft and watercraft. The goal is charge a 15-mF capacitor bank to 2.3 kV in 200 ms to allow countermeasure deployment in bursts of several rounds at a rate of 3 RPS (rounds per second). Due to possible use aboard aircraft, components where chosen to minimize weight and volume. For this reason, as well as for simplicity and to reduce cost, a series bank of special, high-current lead-acid batteries was chosen as the source of prime power. The 192-V voltage of the battery bank is boosted to 2 kV using a forward converter comprised of four IGBT switches in an H-bridge configuration, a ferrite-core step-up transformer, and a full wave rectifier.