Development of high voltage pulser for High Power Electromagnetic (HPEM) simulation

In the present scenario, the pulse power technology plays a vital role in variety of applications ranging from industrial & medical fields to scientific & defence applications. One of the defensive applications is in the hardness assurance testing of the hardened mission critical defence electronics. Sophisticated mission critical defence electronics is highly susceptible to the transient Electromagnetic Environment (EME) of high intensity. Hence sufficient protection needs to be given to such critical defence electronics to withstand against the damaging & upsetting effects of High Power Electro Magnetics (HPEM). In order to validate the degree of protection provided, the hardened system(s) needs to be exposed to the simulated transient environment. This requires the development of a high voltage pulser with a very peculiar wave shape of the output impulse voltage. The challenges faced in realization & development of a typical 640 kV High Voltage pulser for one of the HPEM environment simulators are discussed in this paper.