Tunable Cavity Filter and Diplexer Using In-Line Dual-Post Resonators.

In this article, a new class of tunable filters and diplexers operating in $X$ -band is presented. The proposed circuits are based on an in-line dual-post resonator, which consists of a pair of antipodal partial-height posts. The resonance and coupling characteristics of the proposed resonator can be regulated by the height and height difference of the posts. The most interesting feature of using the in-line dual-post resonator is that the input–output coupling and inter-resonator coupling are inversely proportional to the frequency within the tuning range, which is necessary for maintaining the fixed absolute bandwidth of the tunable filter. A prototype tunable filter is designed and fabricated, showing a low variation ($< \pm 3.9$ %) in the absolute bandwidth over a relatively wide tuning range of about 17%. The waveguide $H$ -plane static $Y$ -junction is designed and cascaded with two channel filters to implement the tunable diplexer. Noncontiguous and contiguous frequency plans can be realized by properly arranging the frequency band of the two channel filters. Measured results show that the tunable diplexer can obtain constant frequency spacing and approximately 10% tuning range with an insertion loss of less than 1.5 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]