The present invention relates to an NRD guide mode suppresser capable of transferring with suppression of an electromagnetic field of an LSE mode which is a parasitic mode in an NRD guide (Nonradiative Dielectric Wave Guide) as an elemental technology realizing ultrahigh-speed/high-capacity wireless communication, and more particularly to an NRD guide mode suppresser for a millimeter-wave band.
In recent years, realization of ultrahigh-speed/high-capacity wireless communication has been strongly demanded, and a millimeter-wave band which does not require any license based on Radio Raw is useful for realization of this communication. In particular, development of a broadband circuit element which covers 59 to 66 GHz band is important. With this development, it is possible to realize an ultrahigh-speed wireless LAN, a home link, cable TV wireless transfer, an inter-vehicle communication system and others at a transmission rate exceeding, e.g., 400 Mbps.
As such a millimeter-wave or microwave transmission circuit, an NRD guide has been conventionally used. In this NRD guide, as shown in
Although an electromagnetic field in a cross section is generated in an operating mode (an LSM mode) of the electromagnetic wave having the operating frequency transmitted through this dielectric waveguide 101 as shown in
In order to suppress this LSE mode, a mode suppressor 103 having a ¼ wavelength choke configuration is inserted into the dielectric waveguide 101 in the prior art as shown in
[Patent Literature 1]
JP-A-2000-341003
In case of inserting the above-described conventional mode suppressor 103 into the dielectric waveguide 101, there is a problem requiring a troublesome operation which takes time and labor, namely, the once-created dielectric waveguide 101 is cut open in a longitudinal direction, and the mode suppressor 103 is inserted into and adhered to this cut portion.
In view of the above-described problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an NRD guide mode suppressor which has a simple configuration and can effectively suppress an LSE mode which is a parasitic mode.
To this end, an NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 1 is characterized in that a conductor is arranged in the vicinity of a dielectric waveguide of an NRD guide which propagates an electromagnetic wave through the dielectric waveguide, the dielectric waveguide being sandwiched between parallel conductor plates and having a gap which is less than a ½ wavelength.
According to the invention defined in claim 1, it is possible to effectively suppress an LSE mode which is an unnecessary parasitic mode by simple external arrangement, i.e., arranging the conductor in the vicinity of the dielectric waveguide of the NRD guide which transmits an electromagnetic wave by using the dielectric waveguide which is sandwiched between the parallel conductor plates and has a gap which is less than a ½ wavelength.
Further, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 2 is characterized in that the conductor is a housing of an apparatus including the NRD guide.
Furthermore, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 3 is characterized in that the conductor is provided in the vicinity of a directional coupler formed of dielectric waveguides which are in proximity to each other and bent.
Moreover, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 4 is characterized in that the conductors are provided along the dielectric waveguide at equal intervals in proximity to each other, a curvature radius of a bending portion of the dielectric waveguide is arbitrary, and an amplitude of the electromagnetic wave propagated through the dielectric waveguide is determined based on an angle of the bending portion.
Additionally, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 5 is characterized in that a distance between the dielectric waveguide and the conductor is changed to adjust a phase constant difference of the electromagnetic wave propagated through the dielectric waveguide.
Further, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 6 is characterized in that a distance between the dielectric waveguide and the conductor is approximately 0.5 mm.
Furthermore, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide mode suppressor according to claim 7 is characterized in that the conductor has a rod-like shape, and a length of the metal body is changed to vary a suppressed frequency of a parasitic mode generated in the dielectric waveguide.
Moreover, in the above-described invention, the NRD guide more suppressor according to claim 8 is characterized in that the dielectric waveguide forms a bending portion of approximately 180 degrees, the conductor is provided on an inner side of the bending portion, and a curvature radius of the conductor is changed to vary a suppressed frequency of a parasitic mode generated in the dielectric waveguide.
As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to demonstrate an advantage of effectively suppressing the LSE mode which is an unnecessary parasitic mode by using only simple external arrangement, i.e., arranging the conductor in the vicinity of the dielectric waveguide of the NRD guide which transmits an electromagnetic wave through the dielectric waveguide which is sandwiched between the parallel conductor plates and has a gap which is less than a ½ wavelength.
Additionally, according to the present invention, by providing the conductor as a housing of an apparatus including the NRD guide, effects and advantages of both a housing function and a mode suppressing function can be obtained, thereby demonstrating an advantage of facilitating a reduction in size and weight.
Further, according to the present invention, by providing the conductor in the vicinity of the directional coupler formed by the dielectric waveguides which are in proximity to each other and bent, a bending radius of each bending portion can be reduced, whereby the direction coupler which is small in size and weight can be advantageously obtained.
Furthermore, according to the present invention, the conductors are provided at equal intervals along the dielectric waveguide in proximity to each other, the bending portion of the dielectric waveguide has an arbitrary curvature radius, and an amplitude of an electromagnetic wave propagated through the dielectric waveguide is determined based on an angle of the bending portion, thereby advantageously assuredly reproducing the LSM mode.
Moreover, according to the present invention, since a phase constant difference of an electromagnetic wave propagated through the dielectric waveguide is adjusted by changing a distance between the dielectric waveguide and the conductor, the bending portion having an arbitrary bending angle can be obtained, and an advantage of realizing the flexible NRD guide can be demonstrated.
Additionally, according to the present invention, a phase constant difference of the NRD guide having a standard shape can be set to 0 by determining a distance between the dielectric waveguide and the conductor as approximately 0.5 mm, and the advantage of reproducing the LSM mode at an output port of a bend can be thereby obtained.
Further, according to the present invention, the conductor has a rod-like shape, a suppressed frequency of the parasitic mode generated in the dielectric waveguide is changed by varying a length of the metal body, or the dielectric waveguide forms the bending portion of approximately 180 degrees, the conductor is provided on the inner side of the bending portion, and a curvature radius of the conductor is changed to vary the suppressed frequency of the parasitic mode generated in the dielectric waveguide, thereby obtaining an advantage of effectively suppressing an operating frequency as a suppression target.
1, 11, 21, 22, 31, 61 dielectric waveguide
2
a, 2b conductor plate
3, 13, 23, 33, 43, 53, 63 metal body
4 housing
P1 to P4 port
Preferred embodiments of an NRD guide mode suppressor according to the present invention will now be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Here, the dielectric waveguide 1 is configured to bend with a curvature radius R and, in this case, an electromagnetic wave in an LSE mode as a parasitic mode is generated besides an LSM mode which is the above-described operating mode. Here, when a metal body 3 as a conductor is provided in the vicinity of the dielectric waveguide 1, the LSE mode is suppressed. A distance d between this metal body 3 and the dielectric waveguide 1 may be zero, and an electromagnetic wave in the LSE mode is effectively suppressed if this distance is approximately 0.5 mm when the operating frequency is in a 60 GHz band. It is to be noted that the metal body 3 has an arbitrary shape and, the LSE mode suppression effect can be obtained even if various kinds of shapes such as a discoid shape, an elliptic shape, a prismatic shape and others are adopted.
Moreover,
Here, when a length 1 of the metal body 13 in the NRD guide mode suppressor depicted in
It is to be noted that the effect of suppressing the LSE mode can be obtained even though the above-described metal body 3 has an arbitrary shape, and hence the LSE mode can be also suppressed by arranging a housing 4 formed of a conductor which is a housing of the NRD guide to be closer to the bending dielectric waveguide 1 like the metal body 13 as shown in, e.g.,
Embodiment 2 according to the present invention will now be described. In Embodiment 1 mentioned above, the LES mode is suppressed when the dielectric waveguide 1 of the NRD guide is generally bent, but the LSE mode is suppressed in the NRD guide serving as a 3-dB coupler in this Embodiment 2.
The curvature radius R of each dielectric waveguide can be reduced in this manner because the LSE mode aboundingly generated at a bending portion is suppressed by provision of the metal body 23 as described above. As a result, the miniaturized 3-dB coupler can be realized. In this case, when the metal body 23 is used for side walls of a housing like Embodiment 1, a reduction in size and weight of the 3-dB coupler can be further facilitated.
Embodiment 3 according to the present invention will now be described. This Embodiment 3 realizes an NRD guide mode suppressor which can completely reproduce an input LSM mode while suppressing an LSE mode.
First, an operation principle of this Embodiment 3 will be explained. Considering such a dielectric waveguide 31 of an NRD guide as shown in
The electromagnetic waves input to the port P1 are propagated in a state where both the LSM mode and the LSE mode exist and, assuming that the electromagnetic waves of the respective modes are a1(z) and a2(z), amplitudes |a1(z)| and |a2(z)| of the respective electromagnetic waves in the LSM mode and the LSE mode can be represented as the following expressions (1) and (2)
|a1(z)|=·(cos2(Γ·z/2)+(Δβ/Γ)2·sin2(Γ·z/2)) (1)
|a2(z)|=(2·c/Γ)|sin(Γ·/2)| (2)
where
Γ=√(4c2+Δβ2) (3)
Here, z is a propagation length on a bend, c is a mode coupling coefficient, and Δβ is a phase constant difference between the LSM mode and the LSE mode.
On the other hand, when the dielectric waveguide 31 is formed of Teflon (R) having a width of 2.5 mm and a height of 2.25 mm and the phase constant difference Δβ is calculated provided that a distance between this dielectric waveguide 31 and the metal body 33 is d, a result is as shown in
|a1(z)|=|cos(c·z)| (4)
|a2(z)|=|sin(c·z)| (4)
Here, since it is theoretically known that the mode coupling coefficient c is in inverse proportion to the curvature radius R and the distance z is in proportion to the curvature radius R, the following expressions (6) and (7) can be obtained.
c=c0/R (c0: a constant) (6)
z=R·θ (7)
Thus, when these expressions (6) and (7) are assigned in the expressions (4) and (5), the following expressions (8) and (9) can be obtained.
|a1(z)|=|cos(c0·θ)| (8)
|a2(z)|=|sin(c0·θ)| (9)
The same result can be also obtained by sandwiching the dielectric waveguide between the two metal bodies as shown in a left-hand inserted view of
Based on these expressions (8) and (9), the respective amplitudes of the LSM mode and the LSE mode do not concern the curvature radius R at all. That is, the curvature radius R does not relate to a design at all and can be arbitrarily determined. That is, even if the dielectric waveguide has any curvature radius, the LSM mode can be reproduced by providing a given fixed angle, i.e., a unity coupling angle θo.
For example, it is possible to realize such an NRD guide mode suppressor having a bending angle of 180° as shown in
Furthermore, in this case, when the radius r, i.e., the distance d is changed as shown in
It is to be noted that the description has been given as to the metal bodies 3, 13, 23, 33, 43, 53, and 63 in Embodiments 1 to 3, but the present invention is not restricted thereto, and any conductor can be used.
According to the present invention, it is possible to obtain an advantage of effectively suppressing an LSE mode which is an unnecessary parasitic mode by the simple external arrangement alone, i.e., arranging a conductor in the vicinity of a dielectric waveguide of an NRD guide which transmits an electromagnetic wave through the dielectric waveguide which is sandwiched between parallel conductor plates and has a gap which is less than a ½ wavelength.
Moreover, according to the present invention, when the conductor is a housing of an apparatus including the NRD guide, effects and advantages of both a housing function and a mode suppressing function can be obtained, thereby facilitating a reduction in size and weight.
Additionally, according to the present invention, when the conductor is provided in the vicinity of a directional coupler formed of dielectric waveguides which are in proximity to each other and bent, a bending radius of a bending portion can be reduced, thereby obtaining the direction coupler reduced in size and weight.
Further, according to the present invention, the conductors are provided along the dielectric waveguide at equal intervals in proximity to each other, a curvature radius of a bending portion of the dielectric waveguide is arbitrary, and an amplitude of an electromagnetic wave propagated through the dielectric waveguide is determined based on an angle of the bending portion, thereby obtaining an advantage of assuredly reproducing an LSM mode.
Furthermore, according to the present invention, since a phase constant difference of an electromagnetic wave propagated through the dielectric waveguide is adjusted by changing a distance between the dielectric waveguide and the conductor, a bending portion having an arbitrary bending angle can be acquired, thus obtaining an advantage of realizing a flexible NRD guide.
Moreover, according to the present invention, a phase constant difference in an NRD guide having a standard shape can be set to zero by determining a distance between the dielectric waveguide and the conductor as approximately 0.5 mm, thereby obtaining an advantage of reproducing an LSM mode at an output port of a bend.
Additionally, according to the present invention, the conductor has a rod-like shape, a length of the metal body is changed to vary a suppressed frequency of a parasitic mode generated in the dielectric waveguide, or the dielectric waveguide forms a bending portion of approximately 180 degrees, the conductor is provided on the inner side of the bending portion, and a curvature radius of the conductor is changed to vary a suppressed frequency of a parasitic mode generated in the dielectric waveguide, thereby acquiring an advantage of effectively suppressing an operating frequency as a suppression target.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2003049953 | Feb 2003 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP04/01167 | 2/5/2004 | WO | 6/5/2006 |