1. Highly efficient, megawatt-class, radio frequency source for mobile ionospheric heaters
- Author
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Brian Beaudoin, David Matthew, Jayakrishnan A. Karakkad, Steven H. Gold, Dennis Papadopoulos, G. M. Milikh, Amith H. Narayan, Gregory S. Nusinovich, Antonio Ting, and Thomas M. Antonsen
- Subjects
Physics ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program ,business.industry ,Electrical engineering ,General Physics and Astronomy ,01 natural sciences ,010305 fluids & plasmas ,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials ,Power (physics) ,Antenna array ,0103 physical sciences ,Inductive output tube ,RLC circuit ,Radio frequency ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Ionosphere ,Telecommunications ,business ,Beam (structure) ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences - Abstract
A mobile heater for ionospheric modification studies requires a new megawatt (MW) class radio frequency (RF) source operating with an antenna array 1/20 the area of the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). To deliver an effective power density comparable to HAARP, the total source power must be in the range of 16 MW, thus demanding highly efficient sources. While the development of a whole multi-megawatt system for mobile ionospheric heaters is a complex engineering problem, in the present paper we describe only the work of our group on studying main features of a prototype MW-class vacuum electronics RF source for such system. The source design we are currently pursuing assumes class D operation using a modified version of the inductive output tube. The electron beam is a thin annular beam, switched on and off by a mod-anode as opposed to a grid. The beam is then passed through a decelerating gap, and its kinetic energy is extracted using a tunable resonant circuit that present...
- Published
- 2017
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