Optimal design of multistage pulse compression modulators with arbitrary voltage gain

Two methods are presented for designing a multistage MPC (magnetic pulse compression) modulator having a required compression ratio and voltage gain and using a minimal number of magnetic cores of a given type. In the first one, an objective function is derived which expresses the total number of magnetic cores as a function of the modulator´s parameters and its minimum is computed. The second algorithm consists of an exhaustive search of all solutions satisfying the set of original global requirements imposed on the modulator. The exhaustive search is made possible by the fact that the variables (Nk,Mk) are integers. The possible solutions are presented as a table. From this, the optimal solution may be selected according to different considerations, such as the minimum number of cores, etc. The second method is more practical since it produces a set of acceptable solutions from which an optimal one can be selected according to different criteria. However, the first method provides an interesting estimate of the number of cores required to meet given specifications