A new directional coupler design with high directivity for PCS and IMT-2000

Abstract

This paper proposes a new design of directional couplers with high directivity for personal communication services (PCS) and International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000). The directional coupler is used to check and verify the power, frequency, and antenna reflection of a signal at transmission stations for mobile communications. The performance requirements of directional couplers are a strong coupling to reduce the effect on the transmitted power and high directivity to suppress the interference of the reflected signals and reduce the errors in communication. So far, various architectures have been proposed to gain high directivity, and there have been many studies used to obtain a strong coupling. However, conventional architectures for high directivity and strong coupling have a directivity of only about 20 dB, and there have been difficulties to achieve the higher directivity of 30 dB suitable for PCS and IMIT-2000. This paper proposes a new architecture of directional couplers based on a grounding composed of strip lines, and compares the test results of this directional coupler with conventional ones. The results show that the proposed directional coupler has a directivity of more than 30 dB and is adequate for PCS and IMT-2000.