Eagle Harbor Technologies R&D Technology and Services
Modular IGBT Switching Power Supplies
Eagle Harbor Technologies (EHT) is developing a modular solid state power supply based on IGBT technologies for the high power pulsed (> 10 MW) RF application supported by the Department of Energy. The prototype power supply utilizes a modular low cost IGBT based system that can be assembled in multiple ways to address a wide range of applications. Experimental testing of the prototype modules demonstrated the abilities for both parallel (high current) and series (high voltage) configurations. Each IGBT module is capable of 1 kA output at 1 kV, with switching frequencies into the megahertz range.
The modules are designed for precise switching control, and have demonstrated rise times of approximately 40 ns when switching 1 kV at 1 kA. Precision switching allows for very low jitter operation (< 5 ns) and enables robust series operation. Series operation eliminates the need for step up transformers.
The present work is focused on building individual modules with active over voltage and over current fault detection. Two prototype supplies will be demonstrated; one with the modules configured to operate at 10 kV and 2 kA, and the other with the modules configured to operate at 1 kV and 20 kA. The prototype cost is estimated to be significantly lower (3X) than older generation IGBT based power supplies for similar high current pulsed applications, and more than a factor of 20 less for the pulsed high voltage and high power tube based RF applications.
Fast High Voltage Trigger Systems
EHT can provide flexible trigger systems to meet a wide variety of applications. EHT’s specialty is in its low cost, high voltage and current triggers that can drive low impedance and reactive loads. Standard triggers include 35 V with a 10 nsec rise and 1 kV with a 40 nsec rise. Many other trigger configurations are available with rise times up to 100 kV/µsec. EHT has a full line of fiber optic isolation solutions available for its triggers.
High Stability and Gain Low Cost Integrators
EHT can provide system design and construction of high gain and stability integrators that are capable of high bandwidth measurements over long pulse operation. The present design operates with a 10 usec RC time, for pulse durations up to the second time scale, with a frequency response in excess of 10 MHz. While not in operation, the integrators employ a sample and hold circuit that zeros input offset voltages. This results in typical drift errors of under 10 mV. A very wide range of input voltages are accepted, as long as the output voltage stays within +/- 2 V. The integrators have differential inputs where a local ground is established. Input signal isolation from all other grounds is important. These integrators have been fairly widely used within the ICC community.
EHT has received Phase I SBIR funding to continue the development of these integrators. This effort consists of two primary tasks. The first is to demonstrate stable operation over the much longer time scales required by ITER. When a proper comparison between available integrator designs is made that normalizes for gain and operation time, the existing integrators are the best available, and meet ITER requirements for stability. However, this stability needs to be demonstrated over the hour type time scales relevant to ITER, as opposed to the very high gain second type operation typically used within the ICC community.
The second primary task is to incorporate the integrators into the National Instruments (NI) platform. This will involve providing seamless connectorization to a variety of NI digitizers, as well as providing for software settable gain adjustments. This task will initial be done for integrators of the existing design, so that rapid commercialization can happen, independently of the achievement of the long duration stable operation required by ITER.
Experimental Design and System Implementation
EHT personnel have decades of experience in the design and construction of complex experimental systems. These include the Star Thruster Experiment (STX), the Translation, Sustainment, and Confinement Upgrade (TCSU), the High Power Helicon Experiment (HPHX), and the Advanced Propulsion Laboratory (APL) at the University of Washington. EHT can design and implement experimental systems from the ground up to meet a wide range of customer needs and specifications.
High Power Plasma Sources for Industrial Applications
EHT is presently supported by DOE to develop a low impurity electrode-less high power inductive plasma source. This source can be configured to operate over a wide range of output plasma parameters. These include operation at high density (> 10^20 m^-3), low temperature (~ 2-5 eV) and as a highly collimated beam. The source is unique since it produces a fully ionized plasma, and does not require a background gas to operate. It can be configured to inject plasma into a system without requiring or injecting attached magnetic flux. The pulsed high velocity and density nature of the plasma source allows for a very large ion flux.
Advanced Electric In-Space Propulsion
EHT has designed a wide range of advanced in-space propulsion concepts. These include high power pulsed and fusion based systems. EHT was recently supported by NASA to develop a pulsed inductive electric propulsion unit for nano and micro satellites. The micro-pulsed inductive thruster (µPIT) is a very small system. The weight, including the thruster body and Power Processing Unit (PPU) is less than 250 g. The µPIT system has precision impulse bit capability (> 3 µN-s) and can operate over a wide range of power levels. This system has the potential to be used as the primary propulsion system for CubeSats.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Computing for Massively Parallel Scientific Applications
Graphics Processing Units (GPU) are high speed massively parallel computational architectures originally built for computer graphics applications. Recent advances in GPUs make them ideally suited to standard numerical computational problems that can be highly parallelized. The result is unprecedented computational speeds.
EHT has developed tools to run plasma physics and fluid dynamics simulations on GPUs for both space and laboratory simulations. These tools include particle trackers, 3D MHD solvers, and Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code that runs on the GPU. The 3D MHD code is presently being optimized to take advantage of shared memory on the GPU. It has been shown to be 100 times faster than the same code running on a comparable CPU. These tools allow researchers to run complex simulations in hours rather than days on desktop computers. This work was originally supported by a United States Air Force SBIR.