Triple-Band Concurrent Reconfigurable Matching Network

Abstract

Reconfigurable Matching Networks (RMN) have found a wide range of applications, such as antenna impedance matching (Antenna Tuning Units -ATU-), the design of reconfigurable power amplifiers, applications in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), adjustable low noise amplifier design, etc. In this paper, we propose the experimental design and verification of a reconfigurable impedance synthesis network that can simultaneously work in three different bands and is completely independent so that the impedance variations in a frequency band are approximately transparent to the rest. The variable elements used in this paper are varactors. To verify its operation, it is applied to a process of matching a laser modulator in three different frequency bands for C-RAN (Cloud Radio Access Networks) applications. Experimental results demonstrate, as expected, that losses may depend on the state in which they are driven. Consequently, a state that can guarantee a good match could also imply greater losses, leading to a certain trade-off. The application of genetic algorithms in this context points out that it may be convenient to optimize the insertion losses of the complete chain instead of the return losses.

Keywords

• Multiband reconfigurable matching network (RMN)
• reconfigurable devices
• load-pull