High efficiency ultra wideband generator

An ultra wideband transmitter to supply a spectrally filtered UWB signal to a load device comprising:

• a switching device having a gate to produce a UWB pulse,
• a singly-terminated resonant circuit that provides a desired spectral response for said UWB pulse, said resonant circuit including a series inductor and a shunt capacitor,
• a timing circuit to drive the gate of the switching device to initiate release of a current pulse into the inductor of said resonant circuit and to pinch off a conduction path of the switching device after issuance of the current pulse so as to substantially eliminate dissipation of energy across said switching device during resonance of said resonant circuit, and
• a load device coupled to an output of said resonant circuit to dissipate energy of said resonant circuit during said resonance, whereby to efficiently produce said spectrally filtered UWB signal across said load device.

A highly-efficient ultra wideband transmitter having an power conversion ratio greater than 50% comprising:

• an antenna,
• a resonant circuit including a singly terminated inductor-capacitor network coupled directly to said antenna,
• a switching device that applies a pulse of energy across an inductor of the inductor-capacitor network of said resonant circuit, and
• a timing circuit to gate the switching device to open a conduction path thereof to supply said pulse directly to said resonant circuit, and to pinch-off the conduction path of the switching device during a current cycle of said switching device after release of said pulse to said resonant circuit, whereby to dissipate greater than 50% of pulse energy of said resonant circuit into said antenna instead of said switching device.