Design analysis and testing of Wilkinson Power Divider with harmonics suppression using Defected Ground Structures

Wilkinson Power Divider is a passive component used in wireless communication as a key device, for dividing RF/microwave power. Defected Ground Structures (DGS) have been developed to improve characteristics of microwave devices & circuits, due to its band-stop property. In this paper, a new effective technique of suppression of second & third harmonic in Wilkinson Power Divider is proposed by using two square headed dumb-bell shaped DGS. The electromagnetic simulation results obtained by using IE3D software shows fairly good agreement with the results gained by applying basic transmission line theory & with the testing results found after implementation of the proposed device. As per the testing results, the error in shift in the frequency where it has maximum return loss is 6.8%. This is due to fabrication tolerances & high-frequency parasitic effect.