Compact 3 dB Wideband Power Divider for Marine Applications

Artificial transmission lines, together with bends of lines, are widely used in miniaturization of microwave devices for maritime communications equipment. An important class of reciprocal four arm devices is formed by directional couplers. In such devices, power is transferred from one shoulder to the other two, and the fourth shoulder remains unexcited. Thanks to artificial lines in operation, it was possible to reduce the dimensions of the device by 68.7%, at an operating frequency of 1 GHz. The paper describes the results of a 3 dB study of a broadband coupler. The bandwidth of such a device was reduced by only 100 MHz.