Electronic circuit with an absorptive distributed limiting circuit
AssigneeNederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek TNO
InventorArnoldus Petrus Maria Maas
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Abstract
An electronic circuit comprising a power limiter circuit. The power limiter circuit comprises a plurality of cascaded transmission line sections, each transmission line section comprising a series arrangement of at least one diode and a dissipative element for absorbing excess input signal power connected in series. The series arrangement is connected between an output of the section and effective ground, a number of diodes connected in series in the series arrangements of the sections decreases with position of the section from an input of the power limiter to an output of the power limiter by steps of one or more diodes at least at part of the sections.
Claims11
An electronic circuit comprising a power limiter circuit, the power limiter circuit comprising a plurality of cascaded transmission line sections, each transmission line section comprising a series arrangement of at least one diode and a dissipative element for absorbing excess input signal power connected in series, wherein the series arrangement is connected between an output of the transmission line section and an effective ground, and wherein a number of diodes connected in series in the series arrangement of the transmission line sections decreases with position of the transmission line section from an input of the power limiter to an output of the power limiter by steps of one or more diodes for at least two sections of the cascaded transmission line sections.
An input power limiter, having a plurality of cascaded sections, wherein each section comprises a transmission line, a pair of switching elements, a pair of dissipative elements, whereby the transmission line is at one end connected to a circuit input and at an opposite end connected to a circuit output, and wherein the opposite end of the transmission line is connected to the pair of switching elements, whereby each switching element is connected to circuit ground by one of the pair of dissipative elements, and whereby each switching element is connected in anti-parallel position.
A method of limiting power transmitted between an input and an output, the method comprising:
- passing a signal through a plurality of cascaded transmission line sections from the input to the output;
- providing, in each section of the cascaded transmission line sections, a series arrangement of at least one diode and a dissipative element connected in a series between an output of the section and an effective ground;
- passing power from the signal to the dissipative elements distributed over different sections of the cascaded transmission line sections when a power of the signal rises above a threshold level determined by the diodes within the series arrangements of the cascaded transmission line sections;
- and
- absorbing at least half the power from the signal in the dissipative elements of the cascaded transmission line sections when the signal is above the threshold level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.