Design and implementation of a practical semi-lumped high power low-pass filter

In this article, a compact, semi-lumped and high power low-pass filter in VHF band frequency is designed, fabricated, and measured. A semi-lumped structure is used to decrease the size of the filter and improve its power handling. In high power analysis, all effects of critical points in distributed and lumped structures are considered. The experimental measurements show close agreement with the simulation results. This filter has a cut off frequency at 180 MHz, 0.02 dB ripples in pass band, return loss better than 21 dB in the pass band, 0.2 dB insertion losses, 1.6 dB/MHz shape factor, a 75% miniaturization against conventional structures with distributed elements, and wide out of band rejection. Moreover, 10 and 1 KW are the peak power and the average power handling of the filter. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:605-614, 2014.