Radiation of High-Power Fast Rise Time Pulses by Hydrogen Spark Gap Antenna at a High Repetition Rate

The design, simulation, analysis, and measurement results of a spark gap switched dipole antenna with a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 100 Hz when excited with a double exponential pulse are reported. The spark gap is filled with hydrogen owing to its superior recovery rate. The theoretical analysis of such an antenna is also presented and the results obtained closely match the measured values. When a voltage of 144 kV p-p is input to the antenna, a peak radiated field of 20.4 kV/m was observed at 10 m. The corresponding figure of merit (FoM) of the proposed antenna computes to 1.42 which is higher than those in the literature.