High power test set up: From trolley to table top

This paper presents various techniques to replace the present trolley based test set up for High Power Test of Passive components with the set up on table top. Various challenging issues are faced by RF designers deal with testing of high power payload components being used in satellite applications. Generation of high power at the spacecraft level as well as within the ground setup, meeting the requirement of Passive Inter Modulation (PIM) level and designing of payload component Multipactor free are some of the major issues to be considered. The issues involved in the high power test setup like mandatory losses, generation of heat, setup complexity are discussed. Various techniques are suggested for miniaturization of ground setup with advantage of reduced setup complexity, reduced power consumption, shorting out thermal issues, minimizing insertion loss etc. By means of flexible RF output power technique for state of the art wide band gap Gallium Nitride (GaN) based SSPAs; it is possible to replace TWTAs. By use of miniaturized card level automated test set up on PXI platform instead of many test equipments mounted on the trolley, the test set up can be placed on a table top.