Low-Loss Reconfigurable Power Divider With Arbitrary Operating Channels Using Switchable K Inverters for Antenna Feeding Network Applications

Abstract

In this article, a four-way low-loss reconfigurable power divider with arbitrary operating channels is designed with a simple circuit configuration. A reconfigurable transmission line (RTL) is proposed, which can be switched between two different characteristic impedances with constant electric length. When setting the constant electric length as 90°, the RTLs are used as switchable <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> inverters to construct a four-way reconfigurable power divider. Then, by controlling the switchable <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> inverters, the power divider can be fully reconfigured in one-channel (State 1), two-channel (State 2), three-channel (State 3), four-channel (State 4), and all-channel-OFF (State 5) operations. Without using extra impedance matching networks, good port matching is achieved in the states with arbitrary transmission channels. Thus, this simple circuit configuration can be applied in the feeding network of antenna systems to achieve flexibly reconfigurable coverages. For verification, a circuit is designed and fabricated. Good agreement between the simulated and measured results is observed. In comparison with reported multiway reconfigurable power dividers, the proposed one exhibits low insertion loss, wide bandwidth, and simple structure.