In this paper, the merits of a high-frequency resonant converter for supplying dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) devices are established. It is shown that, thanks to its high-frequency operating condition, such a converter allows to supply DBD devices with short discharge current pulses, a high repetition rate, and to control the injected power. In addition, such a topology eliminates the matter of connecting a high-voltage transformer directly across the DBD device and avoids the issues related to the parasitic capacitances of the latter which disturbs the control the power transfer to the plasma. The design issues of the converter, including the inverter and its switches, the resonant inductor, and the parameter drift compensation are studied. An experimental validation is performed: a mega Hertz resonant converter using GaN FET switches has been manufactured and tested with an excimer lamp.

An electrical model for a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is proposed, with the aim of its application in power supply design process. An identification method, which finds the actual value of the parameters in a model, is presented. The specific modelling of a XeCl exciplex lamp is developed, along with the identification procedure of the parameters, using a sinusoidal and a pulsed experiment. Electrical representation of the model is done in two different simulators. The applicability of the identified model is proved with different experiments. Differences between experimental and simulated waveforms are minor, encouraging the use of the model in the construction of the converter for the DBD lamp.

A whole structure and two management strategies are proposed here for hybridisation of a Ram air turbine (RAT) by means of supercapacitors. Such hybrid structure is dedicated to an aircraft emergency network. The structure consists in coupling, through a 270 V DC bus, a controlled source (RAT) with a storage device interfaced through a bidirectional DC–DC converter. Both the energy-management strategies are described and analysed: the first one is to assign the ‘high-frequency harmonics’ of the load power to the storage which is current controlled, whereas the RAT controls the bus voltage and then only feeds the average power, losses and low-frequency harmonics of the load. The second one proposes an energy optimised operation of the system: the RAT, being current controlled, is able to maximise the supplied power (maximum power point tracking), as for classical wind turbines. For such a strategy, the bus voltage is regulated from the storage device. The RAT sizing and its mass can then be strongly reduced by means of this hybrid structure controlled with optimised management strategies. Experiments on a lab test-bench confirm analyses presented.

With the aim of providing a power supply for the study of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) excimer lamps (excilamps), a current-mode converter that allows for an accurate adjustment of the electrical power injected into one of those lamps is designed and implemented. Starting from the electrical model of the DBD lamps, the convenience of using a current-mode supply to control the lamp power is demonstrated. With the proposed converter, the current supplied to the lamp has a trapezoidal almost-square shape controlled by means of three parameters, namely, amplitude, duty cycle, and frequency, which provides full control of the lamp electrical power. Implementation is made considering a step-up transformer interfacing the high-voltage lamp with the converter. Experiments demonstrate the operating principle of this converter, including ultraviolet power measurements for a DBD XeCl excilamp. The capabilities of the converter are used to analyze the lamp behavior under different combinations of these three parameters, illustrating its capabilities for finding the optimal operating point of a DBD reactor.