The Power Combiner Structure has five ports, of which four are used for input and one for output. This is a simplified cross-sectional view: holes for fastening and cooling are omitted for the sake of clarity.

A waveguide structure for combining the outputs of four amplifiers operating at 35 GHz (Ka band) is based on a similar prior structure used in the X band. The structure is designed to function with low combining loss and low total reflected power at a center frequency of 35 GHz with a 160 MHz bandwidth.

The structure (see figure) comprises mainly a junction of five rectangular waveguides in a radial waveguide. The outputs of the four amplifiers can be coupled in through any four of the five waveguide ports. Provided that these four signals are properly phased, they combine and come out through the fifth waveguide port.

This work was done by Raul Perez and Samuel Li of Caltech for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
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Four-Way Ka-Band Power Combiner

(reference NPO-41291) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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