Experimental Comparison Research on the performance of RF front-end EMP protection modules based on GDT and SPG

Abstract

In this paper, experimental comparison research was made on the performance of RF front-end electromagnetic pulses (EMP) protection modules based on ceramic gas discharge tubes (GDT) and glass spark protection gap (SPG) in the cases of injection of different kinds of EMP sources including damped sinusoidal oscillations in the frequency range of 10MHz $\sim100$ MHz and dual exponential HEMP pulses with nanoseconds rising edge. At last, the performance of high power protection module based on multiple SPGs was tested when HEMP pulses with different voltage were injected into it. The research showed that protection module based on SPG had shorter action delay and smaller breakdown voltage in comparison with module based on GDT, and the power capability and protection effect of SPG-type module can be improved by means of connecting multiple SPG in parallel.