Broadband Circularly Polarized Ferrite Phase Shifter

With the development of the phased array antenna systems, the research on various phase shifters becomes more and more important. Of all sorts of phase shifters tuned by electricity, the ferrite phase shifters are much widely used, because of their advantages of high reliability and low insert loss. The circle-polarized ferrite phase shifters are widely applied in tracking radars and exploring radars, due to their particular characteristics. Strictly speaking, the circle-polarized ferrite phase shifters are nonreciprocal, but them have some "reciprocal" characteristics. Its "reciprocity" make the antenna be able to transmit and receive the signal at the same time. So it is unnecessary for the antenna to be switched from transmitting to receiving, and the antenna hasn't near blind zone. In the field of space exploring, engineers usually increase the quantity of antenna elements and the work band to improve the effect distance and resolving power of the antennas. So it is necessary to research on wide band circle-polarized phase shifters for these cases.In this paper the principle of the circle-polarized ferrite phase shifters and the technology of wide-band matching are briefly analyzed. The use of their "reciprocity" in the array antennas is illuminated. On this basis, we outline the major design method of the circle-polarized ferrite phase shifters. Through emulating, we have developed the practical circle-polarized ferrite phase shifters and gained the major parameters from emulate and experiment. Still in the engineering application, thousands upon thousands of phase shifters are often required. In the process of manufacturing, people always pay more attention to the uniformity of phase shifters. The engineering data are offered in the last chapter, and may have some referenced value to the application of circle-polarized ferrite phase shifters to array antennas.