Temperature controlled high power tuner
OwnerChristos Tsironisinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
High power impedance tuners suffer from intense heating of the center conductor of the tuner airline (slabline), due to dissipated RF and DC power and, in addition to high electric field between the metallic tuning probe (slug) and the center conductor, also from associated thermal expansion causing sagging of the center conductor and possible electrical short. If the thermal expansion cannot be accommodated by structural means, the center conductor is cooled using forced air created by ventilators or re-circulating low loss dielectric liquid flowing through the slabline. Premature tuner aging through continuous airflow or cooling liquid circulation is avoided using real time monitoring of dissipated (heating) power and regulation of the cooling mechanism.
Claims8
A temperature control and regulation mechanism in a high-power slide screw impedance tuner, comprising:
- the high-power slide screw impedance tuner which comprises a parallel plate transmission line (slabline) with two ports, a test port, and an idle port, linked with a center conductor and at least one mobile carriage sliding along the slabline;
- and
- the temperature control and regulation mechanism comprising:
- a) a calibration method in linking a temperature of the center conductor to a sum of a dissipated radio frequency (RF) and direct current (DC) power in the tuner,
- b) a regulated cooling mechanism linked to the temperature of the center conductor,
- c) an electronic control interface communicating with a control computer,
- d) a control computer communicating with RF and DC measurement instruments, and
- e) a real-time monitoring procedure of the dissipated RF and DC power and regulation of the temperature of the center conductor run in the control computer,
- wherein the control computer retrieves and evaluates RF s-parameters and DC data from the measurements instruments to calculate RF and DC dissipated power, retrieves a temperature Θ from a thermal calibration file and regulates the cooling mechanism through the electronic control interface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.