Reconfigurable 1:4 Wilkinson Power Divider Used in ISM Band Applications

Abstract

AbstractMany researchers have contributed to the technical developments of a variety of multistage power dividers based on the Wilkinson topology by replacing the quarter wave transmission line section with other means. It was possible to reduce the size of the power divider to a great extent but the S-parameters were largely affected. This was due to the effect of termination, discontinuties, mismatching losses and manufacturing tolerance. Amplitude and phase imbalance also contributed to destabilised performance of power dividers. The current paper presents a reconfigurable 1:4 Wilkinson power divider (WPD) with 3 sections of 2-way WPDs operating in ISM Band applications in order to work around such limitations. The simulation of the power divider is carried out with CST software which is capable of analysis of microwave circuits, and calculation of amplitude and phases of the scattering parameters can be done very accurately. The average measured values of the S-parameters are: insertion loss −6.28 dB, the bandwidth at −10 dB and the return loss is 39.69%. The output ports have no reflection, and hence, they are perfectly isolated. The surface current of the power divider has no coupling of current between output ports when port 1 is excited. It indicates that the output ports are perfectly isolated. The dimensions of the power divider are 112 × 157 mm.KeywordsPower dividerInsertion lossMicrostripReturn lossReflection coefficient