In this work, a step-by-step development of a compact microstrip rat-race coupler (RRC) has been presented and discussed. A high degree of miniaturization has been obtained by substituting six quarter-wavelength uniform atomic building blocks of a RRC by their nonuniform counterparts. The miniaturization procedure has been realized in three progressive steps: (i) the first layout solution of a miniaturized RRC has been acquired by using an accurate mathematical model of a nonuniform transmission line (NUTL); (ii) the second layout solution has been obtained by a manual refinement and EM fine-tuning of the NUTL geometry aimed at the utilization of the interior of the RRC in a highly efficient manner; (iii) the final layout, occupying only 8.5% estate area in comparison to a conventional RRC, is the result of the EM optimization. The experimental results confirm the theoretical predictions, proving the vital usefulness of the approach.
Authors
Additional information
- DOI
- Digital Object Identifier link open in new tab 10.1002/mop.28216
- Category
- Publikacja w czasopiśmie
- Type
- artykuł w czasopiśmie wyróżnionym w JCR
- Language
- angielski
- Publication year
- 2014
