Bipolar Steep Pulse Current Source for Highly Inductive Load

A bipolar pulse current source is proposed for a highly inductive load. The current source exploits a noninductive capacitor to store or release the energy back to and from inductive load during switching on or off of power inverter. A boost module is designed at the dc side of inverter to supplement the required energy gap so that edge steepness of the load current can be improved. The capacitor and boost elements are configured based on the analysis of capacitor impact on the load current and boost inductor current. The stability of load current can be guaranteed by the multiple driving pulses generated from closed-loop control of boost switch, regardless of load changes or initial pulse width offset. An experiment prototype is built to generate a flat-top 20 A current with the 200 μs rise/fall time for an inductive load of 2 mH or higher. Due to the steep rising and falling edges, the inductive load can realize high-frequency pulse currents. Moreover, the steep pulse current source can excite strong magnetic field, which make it especially useful for the inductive coils of high-power geophysical transient electromagnetic method (TEM) transmitter.