Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
AEU - International Journal of Electronics and Communications, cilt.178, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Phased array communication and radar systems employ vector modulators (VM) to simultaneously control both phase and amplitude. This paper presents an innovative technique to alternate the RF signal into four quadrants using switchable balun based bi-phase modulators. This switchable balun topology offers a compact Printed Circuit Board (PCB) based VM design as an alternative solution to high-dimensional hybrid couplers or reflection-type pin diodes. Thanks to the balun, the VM circuit dimensions are only 12.7 mm × 25.4 mm with wide frequency bandwidth coverage. Additionally, the total power consumption is only 3 mW due to its entirely passive topology. The developed VM consists of a 90° power divider, switchable balun based bi-phase modulators, digitally controlled attenuators (DCA), and an in-phase power combiner. The proposed VM achieves a 360° phase shift without any dead zones and 31.5 dB attenuation in 9:1 operation bandwidth with lower rms phase and amplitude errors than the other previously reported state of the arts. Also, this design exhibits a calculated better than −31 dB rms error vector magnitude (EVM). Detailed characterization results show that the proposed VM can be used in transmit or receive beamforming networks that operate from 2 GHz to 18 GHz.