NON LINEAR OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUE FOR THE REDUCTION OF THE FREQUENCY SCANNING EFFECT IN A PHASED ARRAY BASED ON BROADBAND INJECTION-LOCKED THIRD HARMONIC SELF-OSCILLATING MIXERS

In this work, an electronically tunable large range phase shifter based on a broadband Injection-Locked Third Harmonic Self-Oscillating Mixer (IL3HSOM) is designed and analyzed. This multifunctional circuit generates a down-converted Intermediate Frequency (IF) signal and provides a theoretical 540◦ continuous phase shift range. The conversion gain and the bandwidth of the circuit are optimized through bifurcation control techniques. The IL3HSOM will be used as the core of a broadband phased antenna array with electronic beam-steering capabilities. The use of a multi-harmonic load based on an arbitrarily width modulated transmission line allows the nonlinear optimization of the circuit phase shift frequency response to ompensate the frequency scanning effect, which negatively influences the performance of broadband antenna arrays.