Objectives  In order to make a breakthrough at the problem of power supply guarantee for ships with special loads, the energy storage mode and topology design of pulsed power supply for special loads were studied.

  Methods  Taking the electrical parameters and power supply demand of a typical special load as an example, a capacitive-inductive hybrid energy storage method with high energy storage density was adopted in this paper and the traditional voltage source chopper circuit was transformed into current source circuit through topology design. The energy stored in the inductor was controlled by power electronic devices and freewheeling circuits, and thus, the requirement of special load pulse current rapidity was met. The leakage inductance in the main circuit was absorbed by resistance-capacitance-diode (RCD) buffer circuit, which reduced the turn-off peak voltage of the main switch.

  Results  The consistent results of simulation and tests show that the power supply topology designed by the parameters can successfully output the pulse current with an amplitude of 1kA, a frequency of 1 kHz to 6 kHz, the time of rising/falling within 100 μs and a duty ratio of 20%-50%.

  Conclusions  The current-pulsed power supply based on capacitive-inductive hybrid energy storage can solve the problem of power supply guarantee of kHz-level and kA-level pulse current through proper parameter design and configuration.