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A simple dual-bandpass filtering structure is proposed. The filter is implemented by means of a new hybrid waveguide-microstrip technology. The novelty of the structure is that it combines two standard printed microstrip coupled fine resonators, with a resonance of the base waveguide cavity, to implement a dual-band operation. Important aspects about the filter design, useful for practical applications are treated. This includes a study on the maximum coupling that can be achieved to the cavity resonance, and guidelines to control the positions of the two passbands and the transmission zeros. Besides, an example has been designed, manufactured and tested. The measurements on the fabricated prototype have confirmed the validity of the new structure to perform dual-band operation. Index Terms--Dual-band filter synthesis, dual-band filters, hybrid waveguide-microstrip technology, microstrip resonators, microwave filter.

In this paper, a new transverse equivalent network for the modal analysis of stub-loaded leaky-wave antennas is developed. The derived network is useful for the study of the radiation of evanescent fields that occurs when they reach the top aperture of the parallel-plate stub. This transverse network is based, for the first time, on a nonhybrid formulation of the constituent parallel-plates modes of order 1 ([TE.sup.Z.sub.1] and [TM.sup.Z.sub.1]). The obtained network is an alternative to the one based on hybrid [TE.sup.Y.sub.1] and [TE.sup.Y.sub.1] modes, and leads to a simpler transverse resonance equation. The new equivalent network is validated by obtaining leaky-mode dispersion curves for a previously studied leaky-wave antenna in nonradiative dielectric guide technology. Index Terms--Nonradiative dielectric (NRD) leaky-wave antennas, stub-loaded leaky-wave antennas, transverse equivalent circuit.

An original leaky-wave antenna (LWA), conceived from a microstrip line which is laterally shielded by parallel plates, is presented in this paper. This structure shows, for the first time, that the leakage rate of a microstrip leaky-mode can be easily controlled while negligibly affecting the pointing direction. The antenna is based on the radiation from the second higher order mode of the microstrip line, which is perturbed by the addition of the two conductor walls to control the level of the leakage rate. The parallel-plates also serve as a mechanism to obtain a single main beam in the azimuthal plane, therefore improving the radiation pattern compared to common dual-beam second-higher order mode microstrip LWAs. The proposed antenna is analyzed by obtaining the corresponding leaky-mode complex propagation constant, which is calculated by a specific method of moments approach. The modal results obtained from the leaky-mode dispersion curves are validated with analysis performed on a three-dimensional structure using commercial finite element method solver. Also, a prototype is fabricated to experimentally confirm the advantages of this novel leaky-wave line source. Index Terms--Laterally-shielded microstrip technology, leakage-rate control, leaky-wave antennas (LWAs).

In this paper, a practical implementation of the spatial images technique for the analysis of shielded multilayered printed circuits inside convex cavities is proposed. A new method is introduced in order to automatically locate the images surrounding the structure in order to impose the appropriate boundary conditions for the potentials. The boundary conditions are imposed at discrete points along the cavity wall and, therefore, the technique proposed is an approximation to the exact cavity modeling. Furthermore, for the analysis of electrically long cavities, the use of several rings of images surrounding the entire cavity at different heights is employed. Using the special features of the formulation, a new method of moments implementation combined with the spatial images technique is proposed in order to efficiently analyze practical multilayered printed filters, considerably reducing the computational cost. Several examples with CPU time comparisons are provided, demonstrating the accuracy and efficiency of the new technique. A novel transversal filter in a trapezium-shaped cavity is designed, manufactured, and tested for the first time using the spatial images technique. Index Terms--Boxed circuits, cavities, Green's functions, integral equations (IEs), printed circuits, spatial images, transversal filters.

A novel structure for the implementation of compact transversal bandpass filters is proposed in this paper. This new proposal consists of a hybrid structure, based on the combination of two different technologies: the waveguide and microstrip. It is shown that the novel hybrid microwave filter is able to implement both a second- and third-order filtering function with up to two or three transmission zeros, respectively. In this way, a practical implementation of a fully canonical transversal filter with a third degree response is for the first time directly achieved. In addition, the way to control the positions of transmission zeros with the new technology is treated in this paper. It is shown that symmetric or asymmetric responses and also filtering functions with a complex pair of transmission zeros can be easily obtained. To demonstrate the validity of this novel structure, several implementation examples are presented. A prototype has been designed, manufactured, and successfully tested, showing the practical validity of the new structure. Index Terms--Bandpass filters, coupling matrices, resonator filters, synthesis techniques, transmission zeros, transversal filters.

This paper presents a new theory to analyze and design a novel leaky-wave coupler based on a hybrid dielectric-waveguide printed-circuit technology. The analysis theory is based on a combined method of moments (MoM) geometrical optics (GO) technique, which makes use of the leaky mode complex propagation constant. This MoM-GO approach allows to easily obtain the response of the coupler, and to illustratively understand the working mechanism of the proposed structure. A coupler is designed to work at 5.5 GHz. Leaky mode results are compared with three-dimensional finite-element method simulations, showing the validity and accuracy of the new theory developed. This novel directional coupler presents interesting advantages when compared to previous wave couplers. Index Terms--Directional coupler, geometrical optics (GO), leaky waves, method of moments (MoM).

This work presents a full-wave integral equation approach specifically conceived for the analysis and design of laterally-shielded rectangular dielectric waveguides, periodically loaded with planar perturbations of rectangular shape. This type of open periodic waveguide supports the propagation of leaky-wave modes, which can be used to build leaky-wave antennas which exhibit many desirable features for millimeter waveband applications. The particularities of the leaky-mode analysis theory are described in this paper, and comparisons with other methods are presented for validation purposes. Using this leaky-mode analysis method, a novel periodic leaky-wave antenna is presented and designed. This novel antenna shows some important improvements with respect to the features of previously proposed antennas. The results of the designed radiation patterns are validated with three-dimensional electromagnetic analysis using commercial software. Index Terms--Floquet modes analysis, leaky-wave antennas, millimeter waveband, periodic antennas.

Much effort has been devoted in the past to the development of electromagnetic simulation algorithms for waveguide junctions that could at the same time include higher-order mode interactions and lead to computationally efficient codes. Even though this is indeed a classical subject, there is still a strong interest in this area as waveguide systems become increasingly complex, and ever shorter development and manufacturing times are required. In this paper a simple method is described for the evaluation of the multimode network representation of planar waveguide junctions in terms of admittance or impedance parameters. The key feature of the method is that it starts from the wanted final results, the equivalent network representation, in order to obtain an analytic expression for the evaluation of the relevant matrix elements. The procedure is based on general network theory and is equivalent to ideally measuring directly the value of the admittance or impedance elements. In this paper the evaluation procedure is fully described. Measured results of actual hardware are then compared with simulations indicating that the codes developed are indeed very accurate as well as computationally very efficient.

In this paper we present new contributions to the computation of the Green's functions arising in the analysis of multilayered shielded printed circuits and antennas. First the quasistatic term of the spectral domain Green's functions is extracted so that the convergence of the reminder dynamic modal series is enhanced. Moreover, it is shown that by extracting a second-order quasi-static term the convergence is further improved. In regard to the quasi-static terms they are computed in the spatial domain by numerically evaluating the associated spatial images series. Then a new and efficient technique is developed for the summation of the slowly convergent modal series. The technique can be viewed as the application of the integration by parts technique to discrete sequences and greatly accelerates the convergence rate of the series involved. It is shown that the new algorithm is numerically very robust and leads to a drastic reduction in the computational effort and time usually required for the numerical evaluation of the shielded Green's functions. Index Terms--Boxed circuits, convergence acceleration, Green's functions, infinite series, integral equation, multilayer media, shielded circuits.