Design of wideband six-port network formed by in-phase and quadrature Wilkinson dividers

The design of a novel wideband six-port network constituted by in-phase and quadrature Wilkinson power dividers is presented. To achieve wideband operation of the quadrature divider, the device uses a 90° phase shifter in the form of a double vertical wireless interconnect that utilises microstrip to coplanar waveguide transitions. The performance of the designed in-phase and quadrature dividers and the entire six-port network is assessed via full-wave electromagnetic simulations and measurements. The obtained results show that the designed six-port network offers good performance in terms of amplitude and phase characteristics across the frequency band of 3.5-9 GHz.