Fully Automated RF/Microwave Filter Tuning by Extracting Human Experience Using Fuzzy Controllers

Abstract

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> The paper introduces modeling of human experience by linguistic if-then rules in terms of fuzzy logic controllers for tuning RF/Microwave filters. The approach could be used for any circuit or system tuning problem that involves human expert information provided that the expert information could be described in terms of linguistic if-then rules. The tuning approach is both theoretically and practically illustrated in this paper. The tuning is done in two stages both taking advantage of fuzzy controllers. The first stage uses the phase response of the filter, while the second stage uses the magnitude response of the filter for adjustment of the tuning screws. A fully automated experimental setup is implemented by high resolution motors with flexible leads to make the tuning possible. 3-pole and 7-pole Chebyshev waveguide filters are used to demonstrate the concept. The measured results prove the validity of the method. </para>