Design of a High-Frequency Irreversible Electroporation Bipolar Pulse Generator Based on H-Bridge Inverter With an Isolating Transformer

High-frequency irreversible electroporation (H-FIRE) is an innovative treatment modality as an energy-based tumor ablation for various cancers. The bipolar pulses used in H-FIRE have proven effective in alleviating muscle contraction, leading to favorable ablation outcomes. This paper presents a design for bipolar pulse generator, based on an H-bridge inverter with an isolating transformer. The H-bridge inverter was utilized to produce bipolar pulses, and the isolating transformer was used to avoid floating output at the load side and contributes to enhancing the safety. The performance of the pulse generator was validated through circuit simulation and experimental verification. Different pulse waveforms with various parameter settings were obtained by adjusting the drive signals of the switches. Experimental results indicated that the voltage amplitude of the pulse power supply is 0 - 400 V, with a pulse width of 300 ns–3 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm{\mu s}}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, and the pulse parameters are flexibly adjustable.