This disclosure relates to filters, including bandpass filters.
Microwave bandstop filters can be used to reflect or absorb unwanted signals in a microwave system. These unwanted signals can originate from co-site or externally generated interference as well as nonlinear components under high-power excitation in the system. For example, a traditional microwave bandstop filter can be composed of resonators coupled to a through line with quarter-wavelength admittance inverters between each resonator. This bandstop filter topology can produce a symmetric notch frequency response and meet a wide variety of practical specifications. However, when the traditional microwave bandstop filter topology is used for high-order filters, the total through-line length becomes long.
A long through-line leads to higher passband insertion loss, increased circuit size and weight, and larger dispersive effects. In addition, the through-line lengths are difficult to tune in production environments yet have appreciable effects on the frequency response of the filter. Thus, conventional bandpass filters have undesirably large passband insertion loss, size, and weight.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and, together with the general description given above and the detailed descriptions of embodiments given below, serve to explain the principles of the present disclosure. In the drawings:
Features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which like reference characters identify corresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosure. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the disclosure, including structures, systems, and methods, may be practiced without these specific details. The description and representation herein are the common means used by those experienced or skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components, and circuitry have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring aspects of the disclosure.
References in the specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an exemplary embodiment,” etc., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.
For purposes of this discussion, the term “module” shall be understood to include one of software, or firmware, or hardware (such as circuits, microchips, processors, or devices, or any combination thereof), or any combination thereof. In addition, it will be understood that each module can include one, or more than one, component within an actual device, and each component that forms a part of the described module can function either cooperatively or independently of any other component forming a part of the module. Conversely, multiple modules described herein can represent a single component within an actual device. Further, components within a module can be in a single device or distributed among multiple devices in a wired or wireless manner.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide systems and methods for implementing bandstop filters using minimum through-line lengths between coupled resonators. For example, conventional microwave bandstop filters with λ/4 inverters between each resonator usually assume that the coupling structures between the through-line and the resonators all implement coupling with either electric field, magnetic field, or the same relative mixture of electric and magnetic field. Embodiments of the present disclosure use mixed electric and magnetic field coupling to reduce physical length between coupled lines.
In an embodiment, a bandstop filter in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure comprises a number of resonators coupled along a transmission line, with a ratio of electric to magnetic coupling of each resonator set such that that physical length between coupled lines is minimized. For example, in an embodiment, if the relative field strengths are intelligently designed for each coupling structure, effective phase offsets can be produced between resonators along the through line. These phase offsets can be used to absorb some or all of the length of the λ/4 inverters between resonators. Thus, the bandstop filter topologies provided by embodiments of the present disclosure can be used to reduce the size, weight, and throughline insertion loss of microwave bandstop filters.
Bandstop filters can be used in microwave systems to excise unwanted signals.
An exemplary bandstop filter in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure comprises a number of resonators coupled along a transmission line, with the ratio of electric to magnetic coupling of each resonator set such that the physical length between coupled resonators is minimized. This approach can be applied to both in-line bandstop topologies as well as other topologies, including reflection-mode.
A reflection-mode bandstop filter can be constructed by first designing a prototype bandpass filter with a reflection coefficient that is equivalent to the transmission coefficient of the desired bandstop filter.
A significant advantage of reflection-mode topology is that only two resonators are required to be coupled to the through-line regardless of the filter order. For example, in an exemplary fifth-order bandstop filter in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, only two resonators are directly coupled to the through-line. Such a topology allows for minimum through-line length in planar technologies like stripline because a resonator can be placed on both sides of the through-line at the same point. In a fifth-order in-line topology, all five resonators would be coupled to the through line. However, even in three dimensional circuit topologies, coupling five resonators to the through-line at the same point would be difficult or impractical, resulting in a need to lengthen the through-line.
A conventional microwave bandstop filter with λ/4 inverters between each resonator assumes that the coupling structures between the through-line and the resonators all implement coupling with either electric field, magnetic field, or the same relative mixture of electric and magnetic field. A bandstop filter in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure uses mixed electric and magnetic field coupling to reduce physical length between coupled lines. In an embodiment, if the relative field strengths are intelligently designed for each coupling structure, effective phase offsets can be produced between resonators along the through line. These phase offsets can be used to absorb some or all of the length of the λ/4 inverters between resonators. This concept is illustrated in
where the sign of θoffset depends on the relative orientation of magnetic coupling. In an embodiment, these equations can be implemented in a fourth-order minimum through length bandstop filter design, which is illustrated in
While this technique enables an improvement over conventional designs that have a total through-line length of N*λ/4, where N is the order of the filter, the total through-line length, N*Lc, where Lc is the length of the coupling section between the through line and each resonator, can still be significant for high-order filters. The combination of reflection-mode circuit techniques and minimum-through-line-length bandstop filter theory can produce bandstop filter designs with total throughline length equal to only the length of a single coupling section, Lc, regardless of filter order. Therefore, the total through-line length becomes only a function of the desired coupling values and fabrication technology tolerances, not filter order, and it can be much shorter than λ/4 for many filter specifications. For high-order filters, dramatic reductions of total length are possible.
Reflection-mode topology can be used to interchange the reflection and transmission responses of a circuit network by placing the network's even and odd mode impedances at the correct ports of the reflection-mode structure.
The phase-expanded but zero-length view of a point along a through line shown in
In an embodiment, the even and odd-mode admittances of a prototype lowpass filter can be determined and, the proposed reflection-mode topology can be used to implement a prototype highpass filter with a transmission coefficient equal to the reflection coefficient of the lowpass prototype and vice-versa. The highpass prototype can be transformed to produce a bandstop response using standard circuit techniques. In this example, a second-order, 20 dB equi-ripple Chebychev lowpass filter prototype will be used as the starting point. However, any lowpass prototype filter can be used for the design procedure.
For the odd mode, the lower path through resonator 2 is shorted to ground. In an embodiment, the even mode admittances have the same form; however, the forms of the odd mode admittances are inverses of each other. Therefore, in an embodiment, the reflection-mode topology can produce a highpass response with a transmission coefficient equal to the lowpass prototype's reflection coefficient.
Comparing the input admittances for
If this 2-pole highpass filter was translated into a physical bandstop filter design, the total through-line length could be limited to only that which is needed to obtain the desired magnitudes of K1 and K2 if K1 and K2 use the proper combination of electric and magnetic coupling such that their offset values produce an intrinsic phase shift that makes the total shift equal to an odd multiple of λ/4. Depending on the design bandwidth, manufacturing technology, and characteristic impedance values, the amount of λ/4 shift required to be obtained from a physical length of transmission line can be very small.
While the example shown in. the previous section could reduce the total through-line length of a second-order filter to the length of one coupling section, the proposed bandstop filter concept is especially beneficial in high-order bandstop filter designs. The through-line length does not increase beyond the length needed to couple to the first two resonators of the filter as the filter order grows. Therefore, high-order bandstop filters can be made with total through-line length equal to the length of one coupling section.
Using the same even and odd-mode analysis procedure shown in the second-order example, the even- and odd-mode admittances of the fifth order bandpass filter can be found and set equal to the even and odd-mode admittances of the fifth-order reflection-mode bandstop topology 604. The result is a 30-dB equi-ripple bandstop response with four reflection zeros. This response was used as a target specification to design and fabricate a suspended-stripline prototype circuit for verification. In
It is to be appreciated that the Detailed Description, and not the Abstract, is intended to be used to interpret the claims. The Abstract may set forth one or more but not all exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure as contemplated by the inventor(s), and thus, is not intended to limit the present disclosure and the appended claims in any way.
The present disclosure has been described above with the aid of functional building blocks illustrating the implementation of specified functions and relationships thereof. The boundaries of these functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined herein for the convenience of the description. Alternate boundaries can be defined so long as the specified functions and relationships thereof are appropriately performed.
The foregoing description of the specific embodiments will so fully reveal the general nature of the disclosure that others can, by applying knowledge within the skill of the art, readily modify and/or adapt for various applications such specific embodiments, without undue experimentation, without departing from the general concept of the present disclosure. Therefore, such adaptations and modifications are intended to be within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodiments, based on the teaching and guidance presented herein. It is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation, such that the terminology or phraseology of the present specification is to be interpreted by the skilled artisan in light of the teachings and guidance.
Any representative signal processing functions described herein can be implemented using computer processors, computer logic, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), digital signal processors, etc., as will be understood by those skilled in the art based on the discussion given herein. Accordingly, any processor that performs the signal processing functions described herein is within the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
The above systems and methods may be implemented as a computer program executing on a machine, as a computer program product, or as a tangible and/or non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored instructions. For example, the functions described herein could be embodied by computer program instructions that are executed by a computer processor or any one of the hardware devices listed above. The computer program instructions cause the processor to perform the signal processing functions described herein. The computer program instructions (e.g., software) can be stored in a tangible non-transitory computer usable medium, computer program medium, or any storage medium that can be accessed by a computer or processor. Such media include a memory device such as a RAM or ROM, or other type of computer storage medium such as a computer disk or CD ROM. Accordingly, any tangible non-transitory computer storage medium having computer program code that cause a processor to perform the signal processing functions described herein are within the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
While various embodiments of the present disclosure have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. It will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art that various changes in form and detail can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present disclosure should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/134,457, filed on Mar. 17, 2015, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/309,191, filed on Mar. 16, 2016, both of which are incorporated by reference herein their entireties.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
20080100401 | Cho | May 2008 | A1 |
20100117766 | Grondahl | May 2010 | A1 |
Entry |
---|
Nizam et al., “Design of a Modified L-Shaped Bandstop Filter for UWB Applications”, 2009 SBMO/IEEE MTT-S International Microwave and Optoelectronics Conference (IMOC), pp. 177-182. |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20160276724 A1 | Sep 2016 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
62134457 | Mar 2015 | US | |
62309191 | Mar 2016 | US |