Design and Optimization of a High-Current Versatile Arbitrary Waveform Generator

Waveform generation is required for many R&D, industrial and biomedical applications, including load characterization and excitation applications in many areas. In the past, these generators have been typically limited in voltage/current/frequency due mainly to limitations of the power devices. Moreover, arbitrary waveform generation has been limited to the low-signal area. However, advances in semiconductor and digital control technologies, as well as topological improvements have enabled the design of high-performance versatile waveform generators with improved operational ranges. This paper deals with the design, optimization and experimental validation versatile 250 Arms, 1 kVpp waveform generator with a 250 kHz bandwidth. Unlike previous proposals, the proposed architecture enables high current operation with a high bandwidth and versatile waveform generation, enabling new testing applications. The proposed generator has been designed, implemented and experimentally verified, proving the feasibility of the proposed power conversion scheme for versatile high-power waveform generatorion.