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A planar implementation of N-way radial power combiners with isolated input ports is presented. While keeping the design simple, the presented combiner can be manufactured solely using printed circuit board technology, and as a result, has a low weight and manufacturing cost. As proof of concept, two power combiners are designed and built. First, a 6-way combiner working at the center frequency of 3.1 GHz with a fractional bandwidth of around 30% was designed. Our measurements of the fabricated combiner showed an input and output return loss of better than 10 dB in a frequency band of 2.65GHz-3.55 GHz where an isolation of higher than 23 dB, amplitude balance of ±0.1 dB, and phase balance of ±1 degree between the input ports were obtained. Then, a simple approach was implemented to widen the frequency band, achieving a fractional bandwidth of 80%. According to our measurements, the wideband combiner has an operating frequency band of 1.35-3.15 GHz, in which an input and output return loss of better than 10 dB with an isolation of higher than 21 dB, amplitude balance of ±0.15 dB, and phase balance of ±1 degree were achieved.INDEX TERMS Isolation, low cost fabrication, microstrip, N-way power combiner, printed circuit board, wideband, Wilkinson power combiner.

This paper presents a new approach to design and implementation of a wideband microstrip radial power combiner with a planar structure in a way that it can be simply and inexpensively fabricated using a standard multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) technology. A 14-way power combiner with a two-octave bandwidth (1.5-6 GHz) is designed and fabricated on a three-layer PCB. Our measurements showed an amplitude and phase balance of ±0.75 dB and ±4.5 degrees, respectively, between the input ports. The main (output) port exhibited a reflection lower than −10 dB. INDEX TERMS Distributed computing, manufacturing process, microstrip, multilayer circuit board, multiphysics simulation, N-way power combiner, planar circuits, power handling, power splitter, printed circuit board, radial power combiner, wideband.

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