Full-Wave Design of -Plane Contiguous Manifold Output Multiplexers Using the Fictitious Reactive Load Concept

In this paper, a new procedure for the design of contiguous band manifold output multiplexers in -plane configuration is presented. Such a configuration eliminates the slots between the T-junctions and the filters allowing high power handling, as well as dramatically reducing the risk of multipactor. This paper pursues the division of the design into tasks with low computational effort. The approach comprises: 1) the singly terminated synthesis of the channel filters and their corresponding full-wave responses; 2) the manifold design using fictitious reactive loads simulating the phase response of every channel out of its corresponding band; and 3) the final full-wave optimization of the whole structure using the simulated-annealing method. In order to validate the above procedure, a five-channel -band multiplexer has been designed, manufactured, and measured.