Center-Slotted Wideband Hybrid 10 dB Coupler

Abstract

In this paper, a wideband microstrip hybrid coupler designed, simulated, built and tested. These couplers have advantage of easy fabrication, lightweight and incorporation with other microwave devices and validated using 3D planar electromagnetic softwares like Sonnet Suites. The final design is composition of two parallel lines with symmetric slits and a center slot. Directional coupler is designed and simulated to operate in the frequency range from 1 GHz to 5 GHz with 2.4 Ghz coupling -10 dB return loss bandwidth between 1.6 - 4 GHz. The fabricated coupler shows good agreement between measured and simulated results with very low isolation characteristics. Four symmetric orthogonal U-Shaped structures at the center of the coupling region distinguishes the proposed design with other works. It makes significant improvement in calculation duration thereby achieving lower response latency and lowers the possible manufacturing errors compared with previously published similar works.