Frequency-Agile Microwave Filters For Radars With Simultaneous Transmission and Reception

Abstract

Multi-band/multi-mode wireless communication systems have been receiving increased attention recently due to their potential for spectrum management in a dynamic spectral environment. Similarly radar systems, which can operate in a variety of frequency bands, could provide significant flexibility in the operation for the future applications. However, multi-band/multi-mode operation adds to the complexity of the microwave systems. Reconfigurable RF/microwave components in general, and tunable filters in particular, have been shown to be promising in significantly reducing the system complexity. On the other hand, current trend of development in wireless communication and radar systems, forces more stringent requirements for electromagnetic spectrum sharing. Therefore, in many microwave applications a very high level of isolation between the channels are required. This is including simultaneous transmit-receive systems or co-site interference scenarios where the leakage from high power transmitter into receiver degrades the system performance. In these applications, conventional tunable bandpass/bandstop filters cannot provide enough isolation between transmitter and receiver. A promising solution which provides a tunable null, independent of the tunable transmission passband, is a dynamic-tunable bandpass-bandstop filter cascade. In this research, a frequency-agile bandpass-bandstop filter cascade for radar systems with simultaneous transmission and reception is designed to create advanced filtering functionality to isolate the desired signals from interfering signals in a spectrally-crowded environment. For a radar with simultaneous transmit and receive, two filter cascade will be required. Each filter will be used on a separate frequency agile transceiver but they will be synchronized to provide simultaneously a deep isolation region at one frequency for receive and a high power tolerant passband at an adjacent frequency for transmit.