Concept and Research

This project has encompassed a variety of different components, all directed towards developing a high-power switching H-Bridge power supply. This was the first grant that I was heavily involved in that successfully transitioned from Phase I to Phase II. The commercialization goal was to produce two different types of supplies: (1) a high peak-power version designed for 200kW operation on pulsed (100s of ms) timescales, and (2) an H-bridge-based pulse generator capable of producing square wave pulses of arbitrary length at CW powers of up to 5kW. 

I was involved in the design and engineering of the basic H-Bridge switching topology for four different iterations of the PCB throughout the Phase I/II period. The Phase I was completed with the design at right, a highly-parallelized H-brige designed as a hybrid board that could be populated for either CW or pulsed operation. In pulsed mode, it produced clean bipolar output waveforms at load currents up to 6kA at output voltages of about 1kV, operating at frequencies up to 1MHz. The transition to Phase II is largely accredited to the success of this board as well in conjunction with our detailed research into the heating characteristics if SiC-based MOSFETs. Successive iterations in Phase II have been optimizations of the Phase I board, with a focus on designing circuitry to allow for easier interface with external trigger signals, higher output voltages, and rectification of the bipolar output waveform. 

Patents Coauthored with Eagle Harbor Technologies

Low Pressure Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Thruster
Patent Number: 11976642 11976642
Published: November 10, 2016 (Reissued May 7, 2024)
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High Voltage Pre-Pulsing
Patent Number: 1192304
Published: November 10, 2016 (Reissued April 16, 2024)
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