Wide range continuously high electrical performance tunable E-plane filter by mechanical translation

This paper introduces a new concept capable of obtaining a wide frequency excursion, keeping high electrical performances. To reach such performances, the use of waveguide resonators is chosen, actuated by a mechanical system is made. Starting from a classical 2 pole E-plane filter, which consists of thin walls implemented along the propagation axis inside a waveguide, we make both the filter external coupling and the frequency tunable by moveable walls. Thus, on the two pole presented, it allows to control the resonance frequency of the system. A simulated 2-pole filter is continuously tuned from 8.37 GHz to 10.04GHz (thus 20%) with a quality factor Q of 6000. It was fabricated by a low cost 3D plastic printing, in order to validate the principle with a fast prototyping technique.