GAN-HEMT based KU-band RF power amplifier design for SATCOM applications

Download

index.pdf

Date

2019

Author

Polater, Ahmet Mert

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

305
views

344
downloads

As many of today’s wireless applications need, transmitters of satellite communication (SATCOM) applications require one of the vital circuits in microwave world; a unique RF power ampliﬁer, the sub circuit which is located just before the antenna of the transmitter. RF power ampliﬁers are the circuits used to amplify the low-power RF signals to achieve adequately high-power signals for various applications. Different than the traditional Si transistor-technology based power ampliﬁers, the main aim of this dissertation is to study gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) based Ku-band RF power ampliﬁer design for SATCOM between a missile’s transmitter and a satellite’s receiver. The reason of common usage of GaN transistor technology in RF power ampliﬁer design in the last ten years caused by the emerging need of more linear operation at higher frequencies; i.e. the frequencies used in SATCOM applications. Therefore, a GaN HEMT based RF power ampliﬁer design with 1 Watt (30 dBm) output power working at 14 GHz center frequency has been studied and designed. All performance parameters are explained by simulation results and measurements. Firstly, the design, whose performance parameters have been veriﬁed with schematic and electromagnetic (EM) simulations, has been prototyped with printed circuit board (PCB) etching devices such as LPKF. The observations made after prototyping showed that the performance difference between simulation results and measurements caused by the manufacturing and assembly errors. As an example of such undesired errors, “poor grounding” of the main transistor can be given due to lack of ﬁlled vias under the transistor. For such high frequency applications, poor grounding can cause a great degradation on the gain. As a result, the observations have proved that the used transistor does not work properly even though the impedance matching appears as successful for this work. Therefore,it has been understood that more sensitive production method should be chosen. Secondly, a professional foundry is preferred for PCB manufacturing and seems that effects of the problems caused by the ﬁrst method are eliminated or decreased remarkably. In addition, a “rework” process is conducted after manufacturing for ﬁne tuning. Lastly, a comparison table of simulation results with two different manufacturing methods are also exhibited in this study.

Subject Keywords

Radio frequency., Keywords: RF, Radio Frequency, Microstrip Line, Power Ampliﬁer, Ku-Band, GaN, HEMT, High Electron Mobility Transistor, SATCOM, Satellite Communication, PCB, Printed Circuit Board, Discrete Design.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12624880/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/45056

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

X Band TX reject waveguide bandpass filter design for satellite communication systems Çelebi, İrem; Koç, Seyit Sencer; Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (2018) For several applications such as satellite communication, ﬁlters are required since antenna systems are operating as both receiving and transmitting. There is a possibility of leakage from transmit to the receive path in these kind of systems which needs to be isolated in order to protect equipments after ﬁlter. Low loss, high isolation and bandpass characteristics are desired for the ﬁltering, which can be validated with waveguide ﬁlters. In this study, bandpass waveguide ﬁlter design operating in X-Band f...
A conceptual evaluation of frequency diverse arrays and novel utilization of LFMCW Eker, Taylan; Demir, Şimşek; Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (2011) Phased array based systems have extending applications in electronic warfare, radio astronomy, civilian applications with technological advancements. The main virtue offered by these systems is the creation of agile beams with utilization of phase shifting or delay elements. In fact, the desire for flexible steering comes with a cost. Frequency Diverse Array (FDA) concept is another approach to beam steering problem. In this context, the subsequent antenna elements are fed with stepped discrete frequencies ...
Design of dual-frequency probe-fed microstrip antennas with genetic optimization algorithm Ozgun, O; Mutlu, S; Aksun, MI; Alatan, Lale (2003-08-01) Dual-frequency operation of antennas has become a necessity for many applications in recent wireless communication systems, such as GPS, GSM services operating at two different frequency bands, and services of PCS and IMT-2000 applications. Although there are various techniques to achieve dual-band operation from various types of microstrip antennas, there is no efficient design tool that has been incorporated with a suitable optimization algorithm. In this paper, the cavity-model based simulation tool alon...
S-band hybrid 4 bit phase shifter using cots components Erkek, Eser; Demir, Şimşek; Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (2009) Microwave and millimeter-wave phase shifters are one of the most important structures of the antenna series that are used in communication and radar applications. They are used to form the main beam of the electronically scanned phase array antennas and generate the appropriate phase values for the antenna elements design while providing electronic beam steering. In this thesis, S-band hybrid 4 bit phase shifter of 22.5º phase resolution is designed, simulated, fabricated and measured. Bits are separately d...
Reliable real-time video communication in wireless sensor networks Ayran, Orhan; Akan, Özgür Barış; Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (2007) Many wireless sensor network (WSN) applications require efficient multimedia communication capabilities. However, the existing communication protocols in the literature mainly aim to achieve energy efficiency and reliability objectives and do not address the multimedia communication challenges in WSN. In this thesis, comprehensive performance evaluation of the existing transport protocols is performed and it has been shown that the existing proposals achieve very poor performance in terms of large set of me...

Citation Formats

A. M. Polater, “GAN-HEMT based KU-band RF power amplifier design for SATCOM applications,” Thesis (M.S.) -- Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences. Electrical and Electronics Engineering., Middle East Technical University, 2019.