Computer-aided analysis and design of circular waveguide tapers

Two computer programs have been developed for the rigorous performance analysis of circular waveguide tapers. They are based on the direct integration of the coupled wave equations and on a mode-matching procedure applied to a step-ladder equivalent of the taper, respectively. Close agreement has been obtained between the predictions of these two approaches. The computer programs are utilized to examine the usefulness of existing taper design procedures. It has been found that a Dolph-Chebychev design is actually capable of predicting the level of the first unwanted mode, provided that the operational frequency is far above its cutoff. The spurious mode excitation can still be improved by taking into account the reconversion of power from the unwanted into the wanted modes. It has been verified by the computer analysis that the above design procedures are applicable even for frequencies near cutoff of the dominant spurious mode; however, that is at the expense of a certain degradation of the input reflection of the incident mode. A further improvement of the performance is possible only by direct computer optimization of the taper