A single-switch high voltage quasi-resonant DC-DC converter for a pulsed plasma thruster

In nano-satellites, the pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) is a suitable electronic propulsion system for drag compensation or attitude control. In this paper, a new quasi-resonant converter topology is proposed for the PPT igniter. It consists of a resonant tank, a step-up transformer and a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier circuit. As compared to other resonant converters, the proposed topology uses a single switch. This improves the reliability and eases switching control. The resonant tank is driven to work at quasi-resonant state to obtain zero-current-switching (ZCS). This reduces switching noise and voltage spike. A prototype circuit has been developed to validate the concept. The output voltage is set to 4kV from a 5V power supply, and the preliminary experimental results show that the circuit works as analyzed.