Analysis and Design of Re-Configurable Combline Filters Using Dielectric Tuners

This article describes different tunable structures for typical waveguide combline filters. In this context, several configurations using dielectric tuners have been studied for resonators, inter-resonator couplings, and input/output couplings. All configurations are analyzed in a wide frequency range showing advantages and drawbacks. Using the best structures in terms of performance, a fully re-configurable filter has been designed. The filter provides a wide tuning range in terms of center frequency while maintaining a high Q factor, and a constant bandwidth and return losses. A first filter prototype has been designed at L-band. The structure demonstrates a tunability in terms of frequency range of about 400 %, thereby clearly demonstrating that the approach we propose is indeed a very promising candidate for implementing tunable combline filters based on dielectric tuners.