Mechanically short multi-carriage tuner
OwnerChristos Tsironisinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Mechanically short multi-carriage impedance tuners use meandering slabline structures. The meandering structure reduces the overall tuner length by a factor of 2.5 at 0.4 GHz. The critical issue of slabline bends is addressed with several low loss, low reflection alternatives. A preferred configuration comprises a vertical-horizontal slabline transition. Cable connections are discarded because of reflections and insertion loss. Measured results show acceptable performance. The tuner is mostly interesting for relatively lower microwave frequencies, such as 1 GHz.
Claims20
A method for making meandering low loss, low reflection airlines comprising straight slotted sections (slablines) and coaxial transition sections to adjacent straight slabline sections, said coaxial transition sections comprising a metallic wall separating said straight sections and an opening (iris) on said wall between said sections.
A method for making short multi-carriage electromechanical impedance tuners using meandering low loss airlines,
- said airlines comprising cascades of straight slotted airline (slabline) sections and low-loss low-reflection bend airline sections,
- said tuners comprising an input port and an output port and said meandering airline between said ports,
- said airline comprising at least two distinct straight slabline sections which are cascaded using said bend airline sections,
- and one or more remotely controlled mobile carriage(s) associated with and sliding along the axis of each said straight section of said slabline,
- each said carriage comprising a vertical axis on which a conductive RF probe is attached, wherein said probe can slide horizontally and vertically inside the slot of said slabline and create controlled reflection factor by capacitive coupling with the centerconductor of said slabline.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.