Multi-way Power Dividers Research Articles

Topology and Design Formulas for Four-Way Filtering Power Divider With Wide Isolation Range

In this paper, we present a topology with design equations for the rigorous design of multiway power dividers having a pre-defined filtering response featuring broadband isolation between any pair of output ports. Hence, a filtering power divider designed using the presented topology and design formulas can suppress undesired oscillations at the spurious frequencies when used as a combiner. More importantly, we provide complete mathematical design equations for designing filtering power dividers with various pre-defined filtering responses. Therefore, it is possible to design a filtering power divider without relying on time-consuming parametric sweeps or heuristic approaches. The presented filtering power divider topology and design equations have been verified by designing, fabricating, and measuring a four-way second-order filtering power divider.

Multi-way differential power divider with microstrip output interfaces

Abstract The design and implementation of planar multi-way differential power dividers remain a challenge in terms of the compactness and especially, for the achievable characteristic impedance of the quarter-wavelength transformer when considering large number of outputs. In this work, the double-sided parallel stripline is recommended to realize such a power divider with out-of-phase outputs, and explicit design methods are provided. The proposed multi-way power divider was developed without the use of lump elements on a single substrate. For system applications, a prototype operating at 41.6 MHz with 12 pairs of out-of-phase outputs that utilize the microstrip line as the output interfaces was fabricated and examined. At the center frequency of 41.6MHz, the developed prototype measured insertion losses akin to 14.3 dB as compared with the theoretical data of 13.8 dB. The attainable impedance bandwidth ranges from 10 MHz to 80 MHz under a magnitude imbalance of ±0.3 dB. The isolations of the adjacent outputs are about 13.1 dB as compared with the theoretical values of 14.428 dB, and are better than 34 dB for more distant ones. Parameter measurements are in good agreement with the numerical predications, thus demonstrating the realization of the proposed multi-way power divider.

Design of multiway power dividers including all connecting lines

This study proposes a method of designing a multiway power divider including all connecting lines. The multiway power divider is based on several interconnected two-way power dividers. The connecting lines comprise the interconnecting sections, used for interconnecting the two-way power dividers, and the input/output extension lines, used for connecting the internal circuit to the on-board feeding ports. In the proposed method, the length of each interconnecting section can be flexibly partitioned to best fit the layout requirement. Every transmission line used for any purpose of connection in the layout is included as part of design and contributes to improvement of matching bandwidths. Therefore, a multiway power divider adopting the design method will result in better bandwidth performance for the same circuit size. The background principle of the proposed method and several simulated design scenarios are provided. A prototype of a four-way power divider is designed and fabricated. The measurement results, decently matching the simulations, validate the proposed idea. This study for the first time discusses on design and optimisation of an entire multiway power divider including all portions of connecting lines. The proposed method can make a multiway power divider achieving an improved bandwidth and more efficient layout.

A Radial Four-Way Power Divider With the Proposed Isolation Network

A radial multiway power divider is used to distribute microwave signals to the next stages located radially around all directions. It has been a challenging task to implement a radial multiway power divider on a planar circuit board without sacrificing the bandwidth performance. In this letter, a radial four-way power divider with the proposed isolation network is presented. The isolation network, composed of several combined RLC and LC networks, plays the crucial role of making the radial layout style easy to realize, and meanwhile improves the output matching and port-to-port isolation. The background principle of the proposed topology and the guideline of designing the isolation network are provided. The fabricated radial four-way power divider results in the measured −20-dB output matching and isolation bandwidths as large as 35% and 65%, respectively, exhibiting the best bandwidth performance among all the published radial power dividers of the same type.

Design of Length-Saving Multiway Wilkinson Power Dividers

A conventional multiway Wilkinson power divider must include transmission lines with a quarter of the wavelength. The prior miniaturized versions can further shorten the quarter-wave lines by adopting synthesized transmission lines, but the resulted shrunk operation bandwidth has not been considered as part of design. This paper introduces a method of designing the proposed length-saving multiway power divider to achieve targeted bandwidth performance with the minimum required total length. The proposed multiway power divider, including transmission lines with flexible lengths and additional matching capacitors, has the adjustable total length that can be set to the optimum value according to the generated plot mapping the corresponding bandwidths to the selected total lengths. The background principle, the theoretical analyses, and the design procedure of the proposed idea are addressed in detail. The design examples of the four-way, eight-way, and 32-way power dividers are provided. A 1-GHz eight-way power divider prototype based on the proposed design method is fabricated. The measurements, decently matching with simulations and the theoretical prediction, show an expected 51% operation bandwidth with the total length reduced to 72% of the conventional value.

Miniaturized Multiway Unequal Power Divider With Controllable Characteristic Impedances

A design method for miniaturized multiway unequal power divider (PD) is proposed. Compared with conventional multiway PD, each power dividing section in the proposed circuit uses transmission lines of less than quarter-wavelength, while the characteristic impedance in each power dividing section can be controlled in a certain range to avoid high-impedance lines. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed design strategy, a four-way unequal prototype working at 1.5 GHz was designed and measured. A good agreement can be observed between the theoretical simulation and the measured results.

Three-dimensional multiway power dividers based on transformation optics.

The two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) multiway power dividers based on transformation optical theory are proposed in this paper. It comprises of several nonisotropic mediums and one isotropic medium without any lumped and distributed elements. By using finite embedded coordinate transformations, the incident beam can be split and bent arbitrarily in order to achieve effective power division and transmission. In addition, the location of the split point can be employed to obtain unequal power dividers. Finally, several typical examples of the generalized power divider without limitation in 3D space are performed, which shows that the proposed power divider can implement required functions with arbitrary power division and arbitrary transmission paths. The excellent simulated results verify the novel design method for power dividers.

Broadband multi-way substrate integrated waveguide radial power divider using novel probe transition

A compact broadband multi-way radial power divider based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology is presented and a novel probe transition is employed to obtain broadband performance. An equivalent circuit model and a simplified design approach are also proposed in this paper. An eight-way broadband multi-way SIW radial power divider is designed, fabricated, and measured. Good agreement between simulated and measured results is achieved for the proposed power divider. The measured insertion loss of the eight-way power divider is approximately 9.5 dB and return loss is greater than 15 dB over entire C-band.

Design of Multiway Power Divider by Using Stepped-Impedance Transformers

In this paper, the design of multiway power dividers by interconnecting power dividers with fewer output ports is studied by transforming them into multisection stepped-impedance transformers. By using this approach, it is easy to design multiway power dividers with required equal ripples of input reflection ( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">S</i> 11 ) within a wide passband. The interconnecting lines can be used as additional matching sections to improve the input matching. General properties of this type of multiway power dividers can be easily obtained. Design of multiway power divider with required input reflection level can be readily performed by using the published data and tables of stepped-impedance transformer in the literature. Both even- and odd-mode analyses are performed to obtain the optimal isolation resistor values. A prototype of a wideband four-way power divider with a rhombic architecture is designed, fabricated, and measured. Simulation and measurement results are in good agreement and validate the proposed approach.

A Novel Dual-Band Bagley Polygon Power Divider with 2-D Configuration

In this paper, a novel design of planar dual-band multi-way lossless power dividers (PDs), namely Bagley Polygon PDs, is presented. The proposed PDs use Π-type dual-band transformers as basic elements, whose design formulas are analyzed and simplified to a concise form. The equivalent circuit of the dual-band Bagley Polygon PD is established, based on which design equations are derived mathematically. After that, the design procedure is demonstrated, and special cases are discussed. To verify the validity of the proposed design, 3-way and 5-way examples are simulated and fabricated at two IMT-Advanced bands of 1.8GHz and 3.5GHz, then simulation and measurement results are provided. The presented PDs have good performances on the bandwidths and phase shifts. Furthermore, the planar configuration leads to convenient design procedure and easy fabrication.

Beam forming transition based upon a zero-phase-shift metamaterial

A sector-shaped transmission line along with a zero-phase-shift metamaterial lens has been demonstrated to optimise the coupling between a narrow transmission line connected to the apex of the sector, and a wide transmission line connected to one face of the lens. Throughout the zero-phase-shift metamaterial lens, the phase is constant. One face of the zero-phase-shift lens is connected to, and conforms to, the circular end of the sectoral transmission line, the other face of the zero-phase-shift lens is flat and connects to the wide transmission line. The sectoral transmission line performs impedance transformation, whereas the zero-phase-shift metamaterial lens is a beam former transforming cylindrical waves to plane waves. The flare angle can be large thereby reducing the length of the transition, and the device can be used in compact multiway power dividers. Both spatial and frequency response calculations of a transition with a 90° flare angle, and operating at 1 GHz, show that a pure transverse electromagnetic (TEM) wave is excited in the wide transmission line with negligible transverse variation in both amplitude and phase, compared to considerable transverse variation without the lens. At 1 GHz the input reflection coefficient was −8.7 dB compared to −6.9 dB without the lens, and −2.5 dB using a slab of the zero-phase-shift metamaterial in place of the lens.

General Design of Multiway Multisection Power Dividers by Interconnecting Two-Way Dividers

It is common practice to design multiway power dividers by interconnecting two-way power dividers. Transmission lines are used to link the two-way dividers. This paper investigates the performance of the interconnected power divider and the effects of the interconnecting transmission lines. In particular, it will be shown that the performance of multiway dividers constructed by interconnecting even-number-section two-way dividers deteriorates significantly as the number of output ports increases. The interconnecting lines can be used to improve the performance of such dividers.

An integration design of compact E‐plane multiway waveguide power dividers

AbstractIn this paper, E‐plane multiway waveguide power dividers consisting of many steps, many sections, and corners are treated. Practical dividers with a small size and a broad bandwidth are designed. In general, in a structure with various discontinuities placed close together, it is necessary to take into account the mutual interactions among the propagating and nonpropagating modes. The design method based on the E‐plane planar circuit approach and the segmentation/desegmentation method used in this paper can provide accurate circuit characteristics with simple matrix calculations. Therefore, optimal design of a circuit configuration consisting of several discontinuities can be performed within a short time. First, the trifurcated and tetrafurcated dividers for the X band are designed. Next, an integrated design is attempted for three‐ and fourway dividers with mitered bends at the output ports. As a result, flat power dividing characteristics over the entire X‐band are obtained. The validity of the present design method is confirmed by means of an electromagnetic field simulator (HFSS) and trial experiments. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 86(9): 1–10, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjb.10151