Phase Reconfigurable Microwave Power Divider

Abstract

A reconfigurable power divider (PD) that can operate either in an in-phase mode or out-of-phase mode is presented. To that end, the novel concept of using tunable phase shifter, which is a reflection-type loaded coupled lines, to emulate an effective variable length transmission line (TL) is utilized. The proposed PD uses a quarter-wavelength TL, a $100~{\Omega }$ isolation resistor and two tunable phase shifters. The presented theoretical analysis shows that by properly selecting the parameters of the phase shifter, it can be used to approximate the performance of variable length TL. To validate the design, a prototype of dimensions 50 mm ${\times }$ 25 mm is built, using Rogers RO3010 substrate, and tested. The results indicate that the device can operate as an in-phase and out-of-phase by using suitable biasing voltages. Across the band 0.9–1.1 GHz, the device has more than 12 dB return loss at all the ports and more than 15 dB isolation between the two output ports with less than 5° phase deviation for both of the in-phase and out-of-phase states.