New Concepts of High Power Ku-band Isolators
Programme
TDE
Programme Reference
T106-503ET
Prime Contractor
HARP TECHNOLOGIES OY
Start Date
End Date
Status
Contracted
Country
Finland
Objectives
The objective is to design, manufacturing and test of a breadboard of a high power isolator suitable for future EO missions in Ku-band
Description
A need for high power isolators has been identified for various altimeter and radar potential EO missions (e.g. Wavemill, CoreH2O,..). To protect the Ku-Band TWT a single isolator unit is preferred over bulkier power divided/combined alternatives involving lower power isolators. The isolator will be subjected to peak powers of up to 3.3kW and CW powers of up to 500W.
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Recent developments based on existing designs have shown that the power handling is a key issue that requires a radically different approach for the design of those power isolators. At Ku-band, where the small physical size of the devices together with a limited selection of suitable ferrite materials, introduce additional problems with linearity, multipaction and thermal dissipation.
The new design approach must consider at the same time thermal issues and microwave performances since are inherently connected for the very high power applications where ferrite materials are applied.
The goal of this activity is to study potential isolator solutions (based on different topologies and materials), to perform the analysis for critical aspects such as thermal, RF and high power and to experimentally verify, at low power, the designs. The experimental verification shall be carried out in representative RF samples
The activity shall be organised as follows:
- analysis of all suitable ferrite materials considering operational frequency, bandwidth, power handling, temperature stability, and low insertion loss.
- test of a subset of those materials,
- preliminary design of two isolators based on different ferrite materials
- thermal, RF and high power analysis of the two designs
- manufacturing and RF characterisation of the two isolators breadboards ; =arial>
- thermal testing of the isolators to optimise and validate the thermal models,
- preparation of development plan for the most promising solutions.
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Application Domain
Earth Observation
Technology Domain
6 - RF Subsystems, Payloads and Technologies
Competence Domain
5-Radiofrequency & Optical Systems and Products
Keywords
1-Microwave Payloads
Initial TRL
TRL 2
Target TRL
TRL 3
Achieved TRL
TRL 4
Public Document