SBIR-STTR Award

The objective of this Research & Development project is to investigate and develop the amplifier design concepts and technologies necessary to build a wideband (approximately six decades), high-power, modular, cascadable amplifier system which will meet the requirements for driving an unknown or dynamic load (varying from zero to infinite impedance), for the purposes of supporting Direct Drive testing for MIL-STD-3023. The intention for this new design is to allow the amplifier to operate at full power (as defined in the testing standards), over the full bandwidth of interest (i.e., 10 kHz-2 GHz), while experiencing non-optimum VSWR due to changing impedances from the Unit Under Test, and without sustaining damage or initiating amplifier shutdown. The results of this Phase I project will provide the technical approach for defining the circuit architectures, components, and internal control functions, which can then be used for a prototype system to be demonstrated in a later development Phase (II). In addition to producing an amplifier which will meet the requirements of the referenced MIL-STD, this amplifier design is anticipated to support new commercial, amplifier-based products and automated testing systems, and thus will be targeted to support Commercial testing standards where similar effects with impedance are present.

The objective of this proposed Phase II project is to further investigate and develop the amplifier design concepts and technologies to build a wideband (six decades), high-power, modular, cascadable amplifier system that meets the requirements for driving a- -dynamic load (varying from zero to infinite impedance), to support Direct Drive testing for MIL-STD-3023.This new design will allow the amplifier to operate at full power, over the full bandwidth of interest (10 kHz-2 GHz), while driving non-optimum VSWR due to changing impedances from the Unit Under Test (UUT), and without damage or amplifier shutdown.During the Phase I effort, an amplifier topology was selected and verified to be the only viable approach to the VSWR requirement.Device-specific test fixtures were fabricated to measure device performance in the application.Suitable drive-line topologies were designed, constructed and tested to verify the drive-line performance could be realized.Very wide-bandwidth Power Combiners were reviewed, evaluated to verify that such RF combiners are suitable for the application.The Phase I research results indicate the chosen amplifier topology is a viable approach to meeting the requirements of the Product Specification through a Phase II effort.The Phase II effort is anticipated to produce several, commercially-viable products.