Design of High-Performance X-Band Monopulse Comparator for Active Phased Array Radar Applications

Monopulse Comparator is one of the core components in development of RF front-end of the tracking radars and therefore widely employed in active phased array radars. Thus, active phased array system are progressively becoming the norm for airborne radars imposing stringent requirement on operation over a wide range of frequencies The proposed design employed four rat race couplers (180° hybrid coupler) to devise the monopulse comparator network and to exploit microstrip technology to realize the network. In this paper, an X-band Monopulse Comparator Network from 8 GHz to 11 GHz is realized on RT Duroid 6002 using microstrip transmission line technology. The design of the monopulse comparator network is modelled and simulated in ANSYS HFSS. The proposed monopulse comparator network achieved VSWR ≤1.6, and isolation values better than 20 dB for almost the entire frequency band.