There are several practical applications in microwave engineering that require the cascade connection of multiple two-port scattering matrices. Many microwave devices are analyzed by segmenting the structure into small building blocks (steps, resonators, lines, etc.) that are characterized by means of the generalized scattering matrix. In order to obtain the reflection and transmission parameters of the entire structure, the scattering matrices of all the building blocks must be cascaded. Traditionally, the conversion of the scattering matrices to ABCD or T matrices has been used in order to perform the cascade connection. An alternative to this procedure is to perform a recursive connection by pairs of the scattering matrices. In this paper, we present a new technique for the efficient cascade connection of N monomodal or multimodal scattering matrices that reduces the computation time by 35% when compared to the cascading by pairs, and by 75% when compared with the use of ABCD matrices.

Multipactor has become a keylimiting factor of the final performance of satellite communication systems, due to the increase in power levels and/or operating frequency bands. As a result, the critical components of these systems must meet demanding multipactor specifications which should be considered during the design process. This paper describes the different techniques available to predict the multipactor threshold power for radio frequency (RF) and microwave passive hardware under continuous wave (CW) excitation, from cumbersome particle simulations to fast approximate methods based on circuit models. All these techniques have been described and compared together for the first time, including also a detailed description of the configuration issues of commercial particle simulators required to obtain accurate multipactor threshold predictions. The techniques are applied to both wideband and narrowband application examples. The predictions have been compared with measured thresholds of manufactured samples obtained with a novel multipactor test bed, thus allowing to highlight the advantages and limitations of each technique and particle simulator. From this paper, it will be possible to choose the most suitable procedure (and an appropriate simulator, if needed) to obtain multipactor threshold prediction of passive hardware.

Empty substrate integrated waveguide (ESIW) is an improvement of the well‐known substrate integrated waveguide. While maintaining the low cost, easy manufacturing, small size, and integration with other circuits in the same substrate, ESIW decreases the related losses by removing the dielectric substrate, thus rendering it more interesting for practical applications. A wide band transition has been already developed to connect ESIW to microstrip lines. Filters, couplers, and antennas have also been developed in ESIW. For multilevel configurations, where different ESIW devices are implemented in different stacked substrates, a transition is needed that connects ESIW lines in different substrate levels. A low reflection wideband transition is presented for connecting two stacked ESIW lines.

A new hybrid mode matching and method of moments formulation based only on electric currents is presented in this paper. The use of only one equivalent current allows the introduction of a new set of unknowns. The chosen new unknowns are the weights related to the scattered modes that emerge from the ports to the waveguides that feed the problem. Applying this new formulation, the matrices that must be inverted are smaller and the generalized scattering matrix can be obtained directly from the solution of the resulting system of equations so that no additional projection is needed to obtain the scattering parameters, as happens with traditional approaches with two equivalent currents. As a result, certain efficiency improvement is obtained, as can be seen when this technique is applied to the solution of H-plane problems in rectangular waveguide.

Aggressive Space Mapping (ASM) techniques are widely used for the automated design of many passive microwave components. In this work, we will show their practical application to the robust design and post-manufacturing tuning of waveguide filters, as well as to the automated synthesis of planar filters and passive devices based on semi-lumped elements and artificial transmission lines. Efficiency and robustness, key issues in all these automated procedures, will be also deeply considered.

The study presents a radio‐frequency performance comparison between several H ‐plane geometry filters based on rectangular waveguide technology. The basic all‐metal filter of resonant cavities is compared with filters loaded with circular dielectric resonators, either in propagative or evanescent mode. The use of these resonators is claimed to reduce the length of the filter, increase the rejection band until the first spurious frequency and to improve the voltage magnification factor (VMF), at the cost of increasing the losses. Therefore, in order to properly assess and quantify the possible advantages of these filters, an accurate analysis of six of them has been developed. All the filters have been designed to have the same electrical response, and the length, losses, rejection band, VMF, and fabrication cost for all the filters are compared.