Abstract
It is provided a waveguide E-plane band-pass filter comprising a tubular, electrically conductive waveguide body. An electrically conductive foil is arranged in the waveguide body and extending along a longitudinal direction of the waveguide body, the foil comprising a plurality of resonator openings. Furthermore, the waveguide body comprises at least one ridge protruding from an inner wall of the waveguide body and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of the waveguide body. The foil is in mechanical contact with said at least one ridge and arranged to divide an inner volume of the waveguide body into two portions. It is also provided a diplexer, a radio transceiver, and a method for filtering a signal using such a filter.
Claims
1. A waveguide E-plane band-pass filter comprising: a tubular, electrically conductive waveguide body; an electrically conductive foil arranged in said waveguide body and extending along a longitudinal direction of said waveguide body, said foil comprising a plurality of resonator openings; wherein said waveguide body comprises at least one ridge protruding from an inner wall of said waveguide body in a plane extending into said waveguide body and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of said waveguide body; and wherein said foil is in mechanical contact with said at least one ridge and arranged extending from said ridge and in another plane substantially parallel to the plane in which said ridge extends into said waveguide body to divide an inner volume of said waveguide body into two portions.
2. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said foil is arranged to divide said inner volume of said waveguide body into two portions of equal dimension.
3. The filter according to claim 1, wherein a cross-section of said at least one ridge has the same shape along the full length of said at least one ridge.
4. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said ridge comprises a plurality of protruding elements, a distance between adjacent protruding elements not exceeding a quarter of a wavelength of a center frequency of said filter.
5. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said at least one ridge has a rectangular cross section.
6. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said foil is in mechanical contact with a central portion of said at least one ridge along a longitudinal length of said ridge.
7. The filter according to claim 1, wherein a size and shape of said at least one ridge is selected such that a first harmonic frequency of said filter is located at a frequency of at least 1.5 times a center frequency of said filter.
8. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said foil is arranged along a symmetry line of said filter running along a longitudinal direction of said filter dividing said waveguide body into two symmetrical parts.
9. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said waveguide body comprises two body elements, each body element comprising one half of said at least one ridge, and said foil being arranged at an interface between said two body elements.
10. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said waveguide body comprises at least two body elements, and wherein one of said body elements comprises said at least one ridge.
11. The filter according to claim 1, wherein said waveguide body has a rectangular cross-section.
12. The filter according to claim 11, wherein said waveguide body comprises two ridges protruding from opposing walls of said waveguide body, wherein said foil is arranged extending between said two ridges.
13. The filter according to claim 12, wherein a cross section of said two ridges has the same shape along the longitudinal length of said two ridges.
14. The filter according to claim 12, wherein said two ridges are arranged opposing each other.
15. A diplexer unit, comprising: a first filter according to claim 1, said first filter configured to be operatively connected to a radio transmitter and having a first passband; a second filter according to claim 1, said second filter configured to be operatively connected to a receiver and having a second passband.
16. A radio transceiver comprising: a radio transmitter; a radio receiver; a diplexer unit according to claim 15 operatively connected to said radio transmitter and to said radio receiver; and an antenna operatively connected to said diplexer unit.
17. A radio transceiver module for filtering a microwave signal, the transceiver comprising: an antenna module for transmitting and receiving a microwave signal; a first waveguide E-plane band-pass filter module for band-pass filtering a transmission signal to form a filtered transmission signal; a second waveguide E-plane band-pass filter module for band-pass filtering an acquired signal to form a filtered acquired signal; both said first and second waveguide E-plane band pass filter modules comprising: at least one internal ridge protruding from an inner wall of a waveguide body in a plane into said waveguide body and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of said waveguide body; and an electrically conductive foil, comprising a plurality of resonator openings, arranged in said waveguide body and extending along a longitudinal direction of said waveguide body, said foil being in mechanical contact with said at least one ridge and arranged extending from said ridge in another plane substantially parallel to the plane in which said ridge extends into said waveguide body to divide an inner volume of said waveguide body into two portions; a radio transmitter module for providing said filtered transmission signal to an antenna; and a receiver module for receiving said filtered acquired signal from said filter.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
(1) The present technique is now described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
(2) FIGS. 1A-B are schematic illustrations of a prior art filter;
(3) FIGS. 2A-B are schematic illustrations of a filter according to an embodiment of the present technique;
(4) FIGS. 3A-B are schematic illustrations of a filter according to an embodiment of the present technique;
(5) FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of a filter according to an embodiment of the present technique;
(6) FIG. 5A is a diagram illustrating properties of a prior art filter;
(7) FIG. 5B is a diagram illustrating properties of a filter according to an embodiment of the present technique;
(8) FIG. 6A is a diagram illustrating properties of a prior art filter;
(9) FIG. 6B is a diagram illustrating properties of a filter according to an embodiment of the present technique;
(10) FIG. 7 is a schematic illustration of a transceiver according to an embodiment of the present technique; and
(11) FIGS. 8A-C are flow charts outlining general method steps of methods according to embodiments of the present technique.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
(12) The present technique will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which certain embodiments of the present technique are shown. The present technique may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the technique to those skilled in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout the description.
(13) In the following detailed description, various embodiments of the waveguide E-plane filter according to the present technique are mainly described with reference to a filter having a rectangular cross section and to a ridge having a rectangular cross-section.
(14) FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a prior art waveguide E-plane band-pass filter 100. The filter 100 of FIG. 1 is used as a comparative example and to outline the general properties of a waveguide E-plane filter 100. The filter 100 comprises a hollow waveguide body 102 and an electrically conductive foil 104. The inner dimensions of the waveguide body 102, i.e. the width 108 and height 110, generally determine the cutoff frequency of a waveguide. In an E-plane filter, an electrically conductive foil 104 is arranged within the waveguide body 102, typically at or close to the center of the waveguide body 102 where the E-field has its maximum value. The foil 104 may also be referred to as a conductive insert or a filter insert. The foil 104 comprises one or more resonator openings 106 which determine the passband of the filter, where each opening corresponds to a pole of the filter. Therefore, the foil 104 is sometimes also referred to as a frequency determining foil 104. The passband is defined as the band around a center frequency where the return loss is lower than a certain level, such as 20 dB. However, the passband may also be defined at other levels of return loss, such as 16 dB, depending on the requirements of the particular application in which the filter is to be used.
(15) As an illustrating example, filter dimensions 108, 110 are given for a filter 100 having a passband with a center frequency at 8 GHz and a bandwidth of approximately 200 MHz. Such a filter 100 has a width 108 of 12.6 mm and a height of 28.5 mm.
(16) FIGS. 2A-B schematically illustrate a filter 200 according to an example embodiment of the present technique. The filter 200 comprises a tubular, electrically conductive, waveguide body 202 having a rectangular cross-section. A tubular waveguide body 202 should herein be understood as a waveguide body being hollow and elongated. The waveguide body 202 is here being illustrated as an open-ended waveguide. However, the present technique is equally applicable for a closed waveguide. The filter 200 further comprises an electrically conductive foil 204 arranged in the waveguide body 202 and extending along a longitudinal direction of the waveguide body 202. The electrically conductive foil 204 can for example be made from a metallic material such as copper. As an alternative to copper, other materials having equivalent electrical properties can also be used. The foil comprises a plurality of resonator openings 206, where each resonator opening 206 correspond to a pole of the filter. Thus, the filter 200 illustrated in FIGS. 2A-B is a five-pole filter as a result of the five resonator openings 206. However, the present technique is equally applicable to E-plane filters having any practical number of poles, where the number and dimension of the resonator openings is selected based on the requirements of the particular application for which the filter is to be used.
(17) The filter of FIGS. 2A-B further comprises a ridge 208 protruding from an inner wall of the waveguide body 202 and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of the waveguide body 202. The foil 204 is arranged in mechanical contact with the ridge 208, at the center of the ridge 208 and along the longitudinal length of the ridge 208, and arranged extending in a substantially perpendicular direction from the ridge 208 reaching an opposing wall of the waveguide body 202 to divide an inner volume of the waveguide body 202 into two portions 222a-b. Since the foil 204, the ridge 208 and the waveguide body 208 are electrically conductive, the foil 204 is in electrical contact with the waveguide body 202. Even though the foil is illustrated as dividing the inner volume of the waveguide body 202 into two substantially equal portions 222a-b, the foil 104 may also be arranged at a position offset from the center of the ridge 207 while still being in mechanical and electrical contact with the ridge 208, the filter still maintaining its filtering properties. Furthermore, the ridge 208 has a rectangular cross-section which has the same shape along the length of the ridge 208, and the ridge extends along the full length of the waveguide body 202. Even though the ridge 208 herein is illustrated as having a rectangular cross-section, the ridge can in principle have an arbitrarily shaped cross-section, such as a triangular cross section or a free form cross-section. Since it is the surface area of the ridge which determines the influence of the ridge on the filter properties, the cross-section shape of the ridge can be selected based on the desired mechanical configuration of the filter and based on manufacturing considerations. In practice, a rectangular cross-section can for example be selected due to the ease of manufacturing. Furthermore, it is not strictly required that a ridge extends along the full length of the waveguide body. However, it should be noted that other configurations where the ridge is shorter than the waveguide body may lead to specific matching requirements for connecting to the filter.
(18) The waveguide body 202 of FIGS. 2A-B is also illustrated as being divided into two substantially similar body elements 218, 220 of equal dimension along an imaginary symmetry line of the waveguide body 202. The foil 204 is arranged between the two body elements 218, 220. However, this is merely one of many different possible configurations of the waveguide body 202 and hence of the filter 200. The waveguide body 202 may for example comprise three or more separate body elements being assembled to form a waveguide body and a ridge. In practice, the specific configuration of waveguide body elements and ridges may be determined based on manufacturing considerations.
(19) Through the use of a ridge 208 in a waveguide E-plane band-pass filter, the dimensions of the filter can be significantly reduced while maintaining similar frequency filtering properties. Taking an 8 Ghz five-pole filter as an illustrative example, as outlined in relation to FIG. 1, a filter configured according to FIGS. 2A-B, having the same passband as the prior art filter of FIG. 1, would have a width 210 of 9.5 mm and a height 212 of 19 mm. Thus, the filter 202 comprising a ridge 208 has a height which is reduced by more than 30% and a width which is reduced by about 25%, giving an overall reduction in cross section area of approximately 50%. Moreover, the length of the conventional filter 100 is about 155 mm, whereas the length of the filter 200 comprising a ridge is about 125 mm, a reduction of 8%. Taken together, this leads to a volume reduction of about 60% which provides a significant advantage for applications where the filter is to be used where the volume is restricted. Moreover, a filter 200 having a reduced size also leads to a reduction in the amount of material needed to manufacture the filter, and thereby to an overall reduction in manufacturing cost.
(20) In FIG. 2A, the ridge 208 has a height 214, defined as the perpendicular protrusion from the inner wall of the waveguide body 202, of 5.8 mm and a width 216 of 4.0 mm. The length of the ridge 208 is the same as the length of the waveguide body 202. As a general principle, the size of the ridge is proportional to the size reduction of filter. However, the size reduction of the filter is in practice limited by the required size of the resonator openings in the foil. It is also possible to manipulate first harmonic and higher order mode suppression of the filter by tuning the geometry of the ridge, and in particular by tuning the surface area of the ridge. Accordingly, the precise dimensions of the ridge are based on design considerations with respect to particular filter requirements. Moreover, as discussed above, the cross-section shape of the ridge can in principle be arbitrarily selected, for example to suit a particular foil having specific dimensions for achieving a desired passband.
(21) It should be noted that the above discussed dimensions are derived from computer simulations, and that a physical filter may have slightly different dimensions and properties, for example due to manufacturing tolerances and trade-offs between size and desired filter characteristics. As an example, manufacturing tolerances for the foil are in the range of +/5 m and manufacturing tolerances for the waveguide body and ridge is in the range of +/30 m.
(22) FIGS. 3A-B are schematic illustrations of an embodiment of a waveguide E-plane band-pass filter 300 comprising two opposing ridges 308, 310 extending from opposing sidewalls of the waveguide body 302. The principles of the filter 200 discussed above in relation to FIGS. 2A-B applies also to the filter 300 of FIGS. 3A-B. One consequence of using a filter 300 with two ridges 308, 310 instead of a single ridge 208 is that the two ridges 308, 310 can be made smaller than the single ridge 208. In the present example, the ridges 308, 310 have a height of 3 mm and a width of 4 mm. The remaining dimensions of the waveguide body 302, i.e. the width 312, height 314 and length are the same as for the filter 200 of FIGS. 2A-B.
(23) Furthermore, the filter 300 comprises two waveguide body elements 320, 322, where each element 320, 322 comprises a respective ridge 308, 310. In other words, the waveguide body 302 can be said to be split along the height direction of the body. The skilled person readily realizes that the waveguide body 302 can also be divided in the same manner as the waveguide body 202 in FIGS. 2a-b, and that the division shown in FIGS. 3A-B is equally applicable also to the filter 200 of FIGS. 2A-B. Moreover, the two ridges 308, 310 are illustrated as being arranged directly opposite each other. Even though it is desirable to arrange the foil 304 in the region where the E-field is highest, the filter would still function even if one or both of the ridges and/or the foil would be somewhat offset from the center position.
(24) FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of a filter 400 according to an embodiment of the present technique where the waveguide body 402 comprises a ridge 408 made up of individual elements 410 protruding from an inner wall of the waveguide body 402. As long as the gap between adjacent protruding elements 410 is smaller than approximately a quarter of a wavelength of a center frequency of the filter, the gaps will not interfere with the filter properties. The same requirement also applies to the distance between the outermost protruding elements and the respective edge of the waveguide body 402. However, gaps which are larger than a quarter of a wavelength may case unwanted resonances in the filter. An advantage of using a ridge comprising individual elements is that the material consumption and thereby the weight and cost of the filter can be reduced. Assuming a center frequency of 8 GHz, the wavelength would be 44 mm, and a quarter wavelength would thus be approximately 11 mm.
(25) The cross-section of the filter 400 in FIG. 4 will be the same as the cross-section of the filter 200 in FIG. 2a and both of the ridges 208, 408 will have the same cross-section shape and size.
(26) In the same manner as discussed above in relation to the filter 200 of FIGS. 2A-B, the filter 400 comprises a foil 404 having resonator openings 406. Furthermore, the foil 404, ridge 408 and the waveguide body 402 will have the same dimensions as the corresponding dimensions of the filter illustrated in FIG. 2A-B and discussed above given the example of an 8 GHz filter.
(27) FIGS. 5A-B are diagrams representing computer simulations of the performance of the prior art filter 100 and the filter 300 discussed above. In particular, curve 502 of FIG. 5a illustrates the S21 parameter and curve 504 illustrates the S11 parameter of the filter 100, where S21 represents the transmitted signal and S11 the reflected signal in a 2-port network. Likewise, in FIG. 5B the curves 506 and 508 illustrate the S21 and S11 parameters, respectively, of the filter 300 comprising two opposing ridges.
(28) As can be seen when comparing FIG. 5A with FIG. 5B, the passbands of the two filters 100, 300 are substantially the same, illustrating that the above discussed size reduction can be achieved without any noticeable change in passband properties.
(29) FIGS. 6A-B are diagrams representing computer simulations of the performance of the prior art filter 100 and the filter 300 comprising ridges as discussed above. Similarly to the curves in FIGS. 5A-B, curves 602 and 604 represent the S21 and S11 parameters, respectively, of filter 100. Curves 608 and 610 represent the S21 and S11 parameters, respectively, of the filter 300 comprising ridges. In FIGS. 6A-B, resonant modes for the two filters are shown and by comparing the two diagrams it can be seen in FIG. 6A that the first harmonic is located at approximately 11 GHz and that a number of higher order modes 606 are visible. Comparing this to the filter 300 comprising opposing ridges, the first harmonic 612 in FIG. 6B is located at a higher frequency, namely at 12.5 GHz, compared to the first harmonic of the prior art filter 100. This is an advantage since first harmonic and higher order resonant modes too close to the passband can lead to a higher noise level in the passband. Accordingly, the passband noise level is reduced through the use of a filter comprising a ridge, as a result of the first harmonic being located at a higher frequency compared to in a comparable filter without a ridge.
(30) Furthermore, curve 608 of FIG. 6B show that higher order modes above the first harmonic 612 are suppressed by the filter 300, meaning that the filter in practice also acts as a low-pass filter blocking frequencies above the first order resonant mode 612 This will provide a practical advantage when using the filter 300 in a system since a separate low-pass filter is often required in order to remove the higher order resonant modes 606 illustrated in FIG. 6A. By using the filter 300 comprising a ridge, not only is the filter in itself smaller, it also reduces the overall number of components needed in a system, leading to a notable reduction in size and complexity, and thereby cost. It should also be noted that the same effects have been observed and the same reasoning applies for a filter comprising a single ridge, e.g. the filter 200 illustrated in FIGS. 2A-B.
(31) FIG. 7 is a schematic illustration of a radio transceiver 700 comprising a radio transmitter 702, a radio receiver 704, a diplexer unit 706 operatively connected to the radio transmitter 702 and to the radio receiver 704, and an antenna 708 operatively connected to the diplexer. The diplexer unit 706 comprises a first filter f1 and a second filter f2, where the filters f1 and f2 are waveguide E-plane band-pass filters comprising a ridge as discussed above. The first filter f1 has a first a first passband and is operatively connected to a radio transmitter 702 (T.sub.x), and the second filter f2 has a second passband and is operatively connected to a receiver 704 (R.sub.x).
(32) In a diplexer, the passbands of the first and second filter f1, f2, are, in FDD (Frequency Duplex Distance), different and separated form each other in order to separate two different frequency bands in a receive and transmit path and to combine them in a antenna path. This is of importance for example in telecommunication systems where different frequency bands are handled by the same transceiver.
(33) The passbands of the first and second filter f1, f2, can also be the same. The same T.sub.x and R.sub.x frequency can for example be used in a TDD (Time Duplex Distance) or with a OMT (Orthomode Transducer) based system, or in a full duplex system where cancellation is used to remove self-interference.
(34) FIGS. 8A-C are flow charts outlining general steps of methods according to various embodiments of the present technique.
(35) FIG. 8A illustrates the steps of a method for filtering a microwave signal in a waveguide E-plane band-pass filter. The method comprise providing 802 a microwave signal to the filter and band-pass filtering 804 the signal using the waveguide E-plane band-pass filter forming a filtered signal, the waveguide E-plane band-pass filter comprising at least one internal ridge protruding from an inner wall of the waveguide and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of said waveguide.
(36) FIG. 8B illustrates the steps of a method for filtering a microwave signal in a radio transceiver, the transceiver comprising a waveguide E-plane band-pass filter. The method comprises acquiring 806 a signal from an antenna band-pass filtering 808 the signal using the waveguide E-plane band-pass filter forming a filtered signal, the waveguide E-plane band-pass filter comprising at least one internal ridge protruding from an inner wall of the waveguide and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of the waveguide, and providing 810 the filtered signal to a receiver module of the radio transceiver.
(37) FIG. 8C illustrates the steps of a method for filtering a microwave signal in a radio transceiver, the transceiver comprising a waveguide E-plane band-pass filter. The method comprises generating 812 a signal by a radio transmitter module of the transceiver, band-pass filtering 814 the signal using the waveguide E-plane band-pass filter forming a filtered signal, the waveguide E-plane band-pass filter comprising at least one internal ridge protruding from an inner wall of the waveguide and extending longitudinally along the longitudinal direction of the waveguide body, and providing 816 the filtered signal to an antenna.
(38) Even though the present technique has been described with reference to specific exemplifying embodiments thereof, many different alterations, modifications and the like will become apparent for those skilled in the art from a study of the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims.
(39) Additionally, variations to the disclosed embodiments can be understood and effected by the skilled person in practicing the present technique.
