Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Defeat
Executive Summary
Texas Tech University's Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics has just finished its first year of a three year ONR grant on basic research for IED defeat. This research grant was awarded based upon P3E's proposal response
"Pulsed Ring-Down and EMP Generators for IED Neutralization and Controlled Destruction" to ONR's BAA entitled
"Counter Improvised Explosive Device
(IED) Basic Research". Due to the basic research requirements, this research effort is focused entirely on enabling technologies for pulsed ring-down and high power RF components that could be used for IED defeat.
The three main topic areas of this research are high pressure, high rep-rate, low jitter switches, phased array antennas and antenna structures for pulsed ring-down applications, and sub-nanosecond breakdown. During the first year TTU has developed two switch test-beds, each capable of high rep-rate. One test-bed is dedicated to geometry and materials testing and the other is used for gas mixture evaluation and jitter optimization. The first year of antenna research has resulted in successful modeling of three antenna structures and with two different codes and experimental comparison with two. Future work will focus on further model verification through antenna experiments and the development of a pulsed ring-down phased array.
The sub-nanosecond breakdown research is focused on determining scaling laws and design criteria for ultra-fast switching. The goal of this research effort is to improve transmission line switching for better antenna coupling. During the first year, TTU has begun development of a Monte-Carlo analysis simulation code that includes the determination of electron multiplication rates and direct calculation of space charge formation. In addition to the code development, an experimental test apparatus capable of producing and measuring 100kV pulses with 300ps rise-times has been developed. Initial simulation results are supported by the empirical analysis obtained from this apparatus.
