Global stability analysis of self-oscillating mixers

The harmonic balance technique is applied here to the simulation of self-oscillating mixers and it is combined with a bifurcations analysis in order to predict the evolution of their IF output as a function of input power or frequency. A technique has also been developed to obtain the global stability portrait of these circuits, allowing to determine the limits of their mixing operation. These techniques have been applied to a self-oscillating mixer in X-band, obtaining very good agreement with the experimental results.