Continuously Tuned Ku-Band Cavity Filter Based on Dielectric Perturbers Made by Ceramic Additive Manufacturing for Space Applications

This paper presents a concept of a tunable cavity resonator composed of a resonating cavity and a dielectric perturber. This tunable resonator is designed and measured to prove the tuning mechanism obtained by varying the angle of rotation of the perturber. A rotation from 0 to 90 produces a tuning ratio of 1:1.25, i.e., a tuning range of 22.2% around 11.5 GHz while maintaining an unloaded Q factor between 1500 and 2300. After this first experimental validation, a third-order bandpass filter is then designed and measured using the same base principle. Using a single mechanical movement, all three resonators’ perturbers are synchronously rotated to create a third-order Chebyshev bandpass filter maintaining a 516±38-MHz bandwidth (for a return loss better than 10 dB) from 9.915 to 12.189 GHz. A 20.6% tuning range is then obtained at approximately 11 GHz with an estimated Q factor from 1400 to 2150. These performances have been obtained by using specifically shaped dielectric perturbers, which have been made by a ceramic additive manufacturing (AM) process (stereolithography). This technology has enabled the perturbers’ specific geometries and embedded supporting elements to be feasible. A sixth-order Chebyshev bandpass filter has also been theoretically proposed using full wave simulations.