Advanced design and optimization of large scale microwave devices

This paper presents a summary of space mapping optimization application for the design of microwave devices used in satellite systems. Output multiplexers and switches are essential components of satellite systems. They are considered large scale microwave devices since they have a large number of parameters and they are very time consuming to simulate by electromagnetic simulators. Finite element EM based simulators and space-mapping optimization are combined to produce an accurate design for T-switches and manifold-coupled output multiplexers with dielectric resonator (DR) loaded filters. Finite element EM based simulators are used as a fine model of each multiplexer channel and a coupling matrix representation is used as a coarse model. Fine details such as tuning screws are included in the fine model. Space mapping optimization has been used to design large-scale output multiplexers and it has significantly reduced the overall tuning time compared to traditional techniques. A multiple space-mapping optimization algorithm has been developed for T-switch design. The T-switch has six paths and because of symmetry can be designed by considering only two paths. Applying space-mapping to each path does not produce feasible results since the two paths share some common design parameters. A multiple space-mapping algorithm iteratively enhances the coarse model of each path. The enhanced coarse models are then optimized to meet the required specifications. Excellent RF performance in the C-band and Ku-band has been obtained in few iterations.