Power supply system for ETC type launchers-demonstration of laboratory set-up

Future electric weapons in mobile applications will require pulsed power supplies with very high values of energy as well as power at the lowest possible volume and mass. As there are hardly any energy storage elements that can meet both requirements, high energy density and power density at the same time, a power supply system is presented that consists of two subsystems: (1) magnetodynamic storage (MDS), a flywheel type storage unit, as an intermediate storage buffer; and (2) a superconducting inductive energy storage system with superconducting opening switches as the pulsed power unit. The components of a current experimental set-up consisting of a 21 MJ/0.5 MW MDS unit and a 0.5MJ/100 MW superconducting storage system are presented and the function principle is described. The system performance is demonstrated by results of laboratory experiments. Especially interesting is the fact that sequential discharge of the superconducting coil modules can be used for optimized pulse shaping according to the respective application.