A class of balanced dual-band bandpass filters (BPFs) with planar transversal-signal-interference coupled-line sections is reported. In their building balanced dual-band BPF stage under differential-mode excitation, a second-order quasi-elliptic-type dual-band bandpass filtering transfer function is obtained. Specifically, from the transversal interaction among their two open-ended and virtually-short-ended half-wavelength coupled-line paths, sharp-rejection differential-mode dual passbands with several out-of-band transmission zeros at both sides are realized. To attain high common-mode suppression levels within the differential-mode passbands, two open-ended line segments are connected at the symmetry plane of the devised balanced dual-band BPF stage. Moreover, higher-order schemes based on in-series-cascaded multi-stage designs to further increase differential-mode selectivity and in-band common-mode rejection are illustrated. The operational principles and parametric-analysis design rules of the engineered transversal-coupled-line-based balanced dual-band BPF approach are detailed. Additionally, for a rigorous interpretation of their zero/pole characteristics, a digital-modeling framework is applied to them to connect RF balanced filters with their discrete-time versions. For practical-validation purposes, a microstrip prototype of two-stage/fourth-order balanced dual-band BPF is built and tested. It exhibits measured differential-mode dual passbands with center frequencies of 1.464 GHz and 2.294 GHz, 3-dB fractional bandwidths of 8.74% and 9.68%, and in-band common-mode rejection levels above 23.16 dB and 31.36 dB, respectively.

Exposing the near field of an antenna to varying dielectric environment causes changes of the antenna input impedance and, thus, unwanted feed mismatch. Feeding such an antenna at different points, and selecting an appropriate feed for best match at a given scenario, may solve the problem. For the case of two scenarios of different dielectric environments and an antenna with two feed points, this work presents a passive power divider network, which keeps the antenna matched to the source in either scenario. Specific impedance transformations in the two branches of the divider network realize power transfer in a first scenario from the source to complex feed impedance at the first antenna feed, while in a second scenario, with now different antenna feed impedances, matched power transfer is from the source to the second antenna feed. Analytical formulae are derived for the design of the divider network. An experiment uses an example antenna with two feeds and a microstrip divider network, connected to a common 50 ohm port. Measurements are conducted with the antenna radiating, first, in air and, secondly, into butter. The measurements show antenna match at 1 GHz in either case and agree well with the analytical results.

In this paper, a realization method for high-efficiency broadband power amplifier (PA) based on split-ring resonator (SRR) second harmonic output matching network (SHOMN) is presented. The SRR is composed of double rectangular rings, and it can flexibly match the second harmonic components to the high-efficiency impedance region in the Smith chart in a wide frequency band. Besides, the impedance transformation characteristic of SRR is derived, and the optimal output impedance is converted from the transistor drain to the output of SHOMN for accurate fundamental matching. For validation, a PA operating in 1.2–3.0 GHz is designed and fabricated for a 10-W GaN transistor. The measurement results show that the maximum efficiency can reach 78.3%; meanwhile, the average saturated output power is 41.0 dBm.

We present a self-biased three-stage GaN-based monolithic microwave integrated circuit low-noise amplifier (LNA) operating between 26 and 29 GHz for 5G mobile communications. The self-biasing circuit, common-source topology with inductive source feedback, and RLC negative feedback loops between gate and drain of the third transistor were implemented to achieve low noise, good port match, high stability, high gain, and compact size. Measurement results show that the LNA has a high and flat gain of 30.5 ± 0.4 dB with noise figure (NF) of 1.65–1.8 dB across the band. The three-stage topology also achieves high linearity, providing the 1 dB compression point output power (P1dB) of 21 dBm in the band. To our knowledge, this combination of NF, gain, and linearity performance represents the state of art of self-biased LNA in this frequency band.

In this study, a single-sideband time-modulated phased array (STMPA)-based hyper beamforming (HBF) system for automobile radar is suggested. The left beam and the right beam are generated once the improved STMPA is split into two subarrays. The HBF method is then used to produce the hyper beam. The switching sequence may be adjusted to generate the hyper beam in the desired direction. This study's benefits may be summed up as follows: (1) The hyper beam's sidelobe level is lower and its beamwidth is narrower than the conventional beam, which can help with estimating the direction of arrival. (2) The HBF can be achieved over a very wide scanning range. (3) With time as an additional controllable variable, the system's control mode is flexible and only two channels are needed, which lowers the system's cost and complexity. The effectiveness of the algorithm is tested through simulation, and the results highlight the system's potential when used with automobile radar.

A new isolated out-of-phase filtering power divider/combiner with high selectivity is presented. Based on a single-layer microstrip, required coupling strength and phase difference are achieved by two pairs of three-line coupled feeding structures. To realize desired bandpass responses, a specific resonator is located between the input and output coupled structures. By connecting a half-wavelength transmission line which is centrally loaded with a grounded resistor between two output ports, high port-to-port isolation is attained. Based on the impedance matrix of coupled three-line structure, theoretical filtering responses are predicted with the specified bandwidth and return loss. For demonstration, a prototype is designed, fabricated, and tested. Both simulated and measured results are displayed to verify the design mechanism.

This paper presents the design of a novel lowpass–bandpass diplexer with compact size and good performance using microstrip cells. For this purpose, two microstrip lowpass and bandpass filters are separately designed and mathematically analyzed. The proposed microstrip diplexer has a novel and simple structure. It occupies a compact area of 0.037 λg2 (722 mm2), and its insertion loss and S11 at both channels are low. The insertion loss at the lower and upper channels is only 0.047 and 0.16 dB, respectively. Meanwhile, both channels are flat with the maximum group delay of 1.68 ns which is the lowest compared to the previously reported diplexers mentioned in this paper. To design the proposed diplexer, first, a lowpass diplexer with good performance is designed which has low losses and a good figure of merit. It has a flat passband with a sharp roll-off. Then, to achieve the proposed diplexer, a bandpass resonator is added to the lowpass filter without any extra matching circuit, which saves the overall size. The proposed diplexer is designed, simulated, and fabricated, where the simulation and measurement results are close.

Worldwide adoption of fourth-generation wireless (4G) long-term evolution (LTE) smartphones and the actual transition to fifth-generation wireless(5G) is the main driving engine for semiconductor industry. 5G is expected to reach high data rate speeds (1 Gbps) and low latency (<1 ms). 5G requires more RF bandwidth and therefore an increase in the number of components such as RF switches, acoustic filters, and power amplifiers integrated in few RF front-end modules. Also, there is an increase in the number of RF radio transmitters and receivers operating at the same time. This paper presents new architecture elements for 5G RF front-end modules. Circuit details and measurements are presented to reduce the RF noise, improve the efficiency, and help the coexistence of multiple radio transmitters. These circuits will help extend the 5G applications with radar-like sensing applications, remote medicine, and autonomous driving.

In this work, a new adaptive digital predistorter (DPD) is proposed to linearize radio frequency power amplifiers (PA). The DPD structure is composed of two sub-models. A Feedback–Wiener sub-model, describing the main inverse nonlinearities of the PA, combined with a second sub-model based on a memory polynomial (MP) model. The interest of this structure is that only the MP model is identified in real time to compensate deviations from the initial behavior and thus further improve the linearization. The identification architecture combines offline measurement and online parameter estimation with small number of coefficients in the MP sub-model to track the changes in the PA characteristics. The proposed structure is used to linearize a class AB 75 W PA, designed by Telerad society for aeronautical communications in Ultra High Frequency (UHF) / Very High Frequency (VHF) bands. The obtained results, in terms of identification of optimal DPD and the performances of the digital processing, show a good trade-off between linearization performances and computational complexity.

This paper presents the design of two passive shaped-beam reflectarrays acting as passive intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) to enhance 5G millimeter-wave coverage in the 27.2–28.2 GHz band. The reflectarray panels have been designed to generate a broadened and deflected beam in dual-linear polarization (horizontal and vertical). The reflectarray cell provides a robust performance under incidence angles of up to 50°, with more than 360° of phase variation range. Phase-only synthesis based on the generalized intersection approach has been applied to obtain the phase distribution on each reflectarray panel, so that their radiation patterns comply with the beamwidth and pointing requirements of the scenario under study. The two reflectarrays show a stable performance in the 27.2–28.2 GHz band in terms of gain, side-lobe level, and cross-polarization. The results confirm the potential of this technology to implement passive low-cost IRSs that will contribute to improve millimeter-wave coverage in 5G wireless networks.

A waveguide power divider based on ridge waveguide to microstrip line transition is presented in this paper. To improve the isolation performance, a probe insulator is inserted into the contact face from the center of the waveguide side wall, also two chip resistors are mounted on a planar substrate and connected with the probe to absorb the coupled energy. The impedance transformation is accomplished by ridge waveguide to microstrip line transition, which is hidden in the waveguide. This proposed power divider shows merits of waveguide power dividers and substrate-integrated waveguide power dividers simultaneously, i.e. planar output ports, compact size, and high isolation. For verification, a power divider operating at the Ka-band is simulated, fabricated, and measured. The obtained results show the return loss and isolation are better than 10 and 20 dB, respectively. The measured insertion loss is <1.5 dB, including the insertion loss of waveguide to microstrip line transitions at the output port in the range of 34.6–39 GHz.

This paper presents a multi-mode resonator (MMR) for next-generation wireless systems that achieves single and dual-band bandpass filter (BPF) responses using a split-ring dual-path structure. The proposed BPF design is realized by employing two pairs of parallel couple lines and two symmetrical step-impedance open-circuited stubs (SIOCS). SIOCS are used to improve selectivity and increase the number of transmission zeros/poles. The proposed single-band BPF exhibits an ultra-wideband (UWB) response having a center frequency of 7.5 GHz, a minimum insertion loss of less than 0.48 dB, and a maximum return loss of 25.35 dB. The proposed UWB BPF has a stopband suppression of 39.34 dB up to 18 GHz and a 3 dB fractional bandwidth of 48.23%. Moreover, a dual-band BPF has been accomplished by utilizing the same architecture while slightly changing the MMR structure and adding more coupling. The center frequency (bandwidth) of the dual broadband BPF is 7.40 GHz (2.40 GHz) and 14.15 GHz (1.7 GHz), respectively. The measured minimum insertion loss is less than 0.23 dB and a return loss of less than 16.8 dB with 3 dB FBWs of 32.4 and 12.1%. Finally, two prototypes are fabricated to validate the proposed characteristics. The BPF's simulated and measured results are in good agreement.

Substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology represents a good solution for the design of couplers. Coupler structures proposed in most relevant reports cannot achieve excellent performance in the case of weak coupling. This work proposes a new weak coupling coupler architecture, similar to the branch line coupler. The metal via arrays is used to reshape the electric field distribution of the SIW structure, making the overall structure achieve weak coupling characteristics. The even-odd mode decomposition method analyzes this structure's equivalent transmission line model. For this purpose, a systematic design procedure is deployed to achieve several coupling values over a wide frequency bandwidth. A novel half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) coupler with a 29 dB coupling is designed and fabricated for verification based on the proposed method. Good agreements between the calculated and simulated results are observed. The proposed coupler has the advantage of high directivity within the broadband and can be used for SIW-based circuits and power detection in the Ku-band.

Interrupted sampling repeater jammer generates multiple false targets to confuse chirp radar systems. In practical situations, maintaining separation between true target echo and jamming signal is not possible because the jamming pulses and the true target echo are overlapping in both time and frequency domains. A new anti-jamming technique against interrupted sampling jamming of self-protection repeater jammer is proposed without the knowledge of the jamming parameters. The proposed technique is based on fractional Fourier transform that can separate the overlapping true target echo and jamming pulses in the fractional domain, and then the resulting pulses are returned to the time domain, the true target can be easily distinguished from the false ones because the jamming pulses lag behind the true target echo by the jammer's delay. The theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate the efficiency and validity of the proposed technique.

Two metasurface-inspired antennas embedded in a metallic cavity are introduced here. They are expected to be integrated on fast moving platforms enduring harsh accelerations and shocks. The metasurface allows enlarging the antenna bandwidth that is intrinsically reduced for small antennas embedded in sub-wavelength metallic cavities. The first one is only 60 × 60 × 20 mm3 (0.23λ1 × 0.23λ1 × 0.08λ1 at the frequency of 1164 MHz) and presents a dual-band behavior, covering both the lower and upper global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) bands (all GNSS bands are covered). It is fed by four probes and a dedicated circuit, ensuring the phase quadrature between adjacent feeds to achieve circular polarization over these two bands. For the second proposed antenna, circular polarization is achieved using two feed points connected to the radiating aperture of size 50 × 50 × 20 mm3 (0.26λ0 × 0.26λ0 × 0.10λ0 at the frequency of 1559 MHz). It covers the E1, L1, B1, and G1 GNSS bands. The numerical results are successfully validated by measurements.

In this paper, a broadband, low insertion loss, and compact folded substrate integrated waveguide (FSIW) phase shifter is proposed for the first time. By loading the complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs) on the middle metal layer of the FSIW, a closed-type slow-wave transmission line (TL) is obtained, which can provide a wideband phase shift (39%) compared with the equal-length fast-wave one. The enclosed structure of the CSRR-loaded FSIW prevents the CSRRs from radiation as suffered in the previous reported CSRR-loaded TLs, resulting in a low insertion loss. This feature greatly reduces the amplitude imbalance between the main line and the reference line of the phase shifter. In addition, no transition structure is required between the FSIWs with and without CSRRs for broadband impedance matching, which makes the phase shifter more compact and easier to integrate with other FSIW devices. To validate the performance of the proposed phase shifter and to illustrate its ease integration, a novel FSIW 180° directional coupler that consists of an FSIW 90° coupler and an FSIW 90° phase shifter is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results agree well with the simulated data.