CN119447755B

CN119447755B - A microwave program-controlled step attenuator

Info

Publication number: CN119447755B
Application number: CN202510050613.4A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 赵龙年; 刘畅; 王明; 代宇恒; 张健
Original assignee: Chengdu Weibin Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Chengdu Weibin Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2025-01-13
Filing date: 2025-01-13
Publication date: 2025-05-06
Anticipated expiration: 2045-01-13
Also published as: CN119447755A

Abstract

The application provides a microwave program-controlled step attenuator which comprises a plurality of steps of step length switching units, wherein each step length switching unit comprises a through sheet fixedly arranged, at least two damping sheets arranged above the through sheet at intervals, and a group of movable reeds respectively positioned at two ends of the damping sheets, each movable reed is respectively connected with a push rod, the push rods are movably arranged along the axes of the push rods and are used for driving the movable reeds to enable the inner ends of the movable reeds to contact the damping sheets or the through sheet, the outer ends of the movable reeds are rotatably connected with one ends of fixed reeds fixedly arranged through rotating columns, the push rods are rotatably arranged around rotating columns corresponding to the movable reeds connected with the movable reeds, the other ends of the fixed reeds are rotatably connected with the outer ends of the movable reeds of adjacent step length switching units through the rotating columns, or are vertically connected with radio frequency connectors. The scheme of the application can realize multi-step switching, and can keep better stability on the basis of realizing switching.

Description

Microwave program-controlled step attenuator

Technical Field

The application belongs to the technical field of radio frequency microwaves, relates to a microwave program-controlled step attenuator, and particularly relates to a microwave program-controlled step attenuator with switchable step length.

Background

The microwave program-controlled step attenuator is mainly used for adjusting the amplitude of a radio frequency signal in a microwave test system, and can adjust the signal level to a desired level, so that the impedance matching of a radio frequency circuit and the isolation protection effect on subsequent devices are realized, and the microwave program-controlled step attenuator is widely applied to a microwave communication system with the requirements of gain setting and control functions, such as a spectrum analyzer, a vector network analyzer, a synthesized signal source and the like.

The microwave program-controlled step attenuator generally comprises three parts, namely a microwave signal processing part, an executing mechanism, a control circuit and an external program-controlled signal interface.

The microwave signal processing part mainly bears the functions of microwave signal input and output, power attenuation, microwave transmission and the like, is a main path of the microwave signal, and is also a key part for determining performance indexes. The input and output parts adopt coaxial connectors, so that full-band continuous coverage can be realized. The internal transmission line and the through line adopt edge lines (belonging to a special form of strip lines), have the characteristics of wide working frequency band and small loss, and can bear relatively high power. The greatest advantage is that the central conductor can be shaped without affecting the transmission characteristics, which is the basic condition for realizing the switching function. Edge lines are also a common type of transmission line for microwave mechanical switches. The attenuation of the microwave signal is realized by means of an attenuation sheet. The attenuation sheet adopts a distributed parameter design, has good attenuation precision and attenuation frequency response in a wider frequency band, and can meet the application occasions with higher precision such as power calibration and the like by matching the suspended coplanar waveguide with an edge line. A group of straight lines and the attenuation sheets form an attenuation unit, a certain specific attenuation amount can be achieved, and various required attenuation amounts can be achieved through different combinations of a plurality of attenuation units.

The actuating mechanism is composed of a plurality of groups of electromagnetic coils and a plurality of precise structural members. After receiving the driving level, the edge line can be immediately pushed to deform, so that the microwave signal is changed from a straight-through (attenuation) state to an attenuation (straight-through) state. And can still rely on magnetic force to maintain the current state after the drive level disappears. The accuracy and reliability of the actuator directly determine the reliability and repeatability of the programmed step attenuator.

The control circuit and the external program control signal interface provide power supply and control level required by driving the executing mechanism, and convert the external program control signal into the control level to drive different executing mechanisms to realize attenuation combination. Switch circuit designs are commonly used.

The coaxial connector connection mode of the traditional program-controlled attenuator is generally divided into two types, namely, the coaxial connector is connected with the edge line perpendicular to the transmission direction of the radio frequency microwave signal, in order to reduce the processing requirement of the connector and further reduce the implementation preparation cost, the edge line at the connection part needs to be bent upwards to be connected with the connector, but the complicated processing of the edge line is increased, the mechanical performance requirement of the edge line is improved, the bending angle edge line deforms to a large extent under the influence of gravity or additional impact to cause the disconnection condition of the coaxial connector, and the coaxial connector is connected with the edge line parallel to the transmission direction of the radio frequency microwave signal through an elastic contact corrugated pipe, as disclosed in a scheme disclosed in CN116759776A, CN 113078430A. Although the bending treatment is not needed, the processing requirement of the edge line is reduced, and the connector and the edge line are connected more tightly through elastic contact, the assembly difficulty is increased due to the fact that the elastic contact corrugated pipe is introduced, the processing difficulty of the elastic contact corrugated pipe is high, and the problem that the performance of a device is reduced or disconnected due to service life failure exists.

Meanwhile, no matter what kind of mode is currently, when the requirement of asynchronous long switching is met, the internal module structure of the device needs to be replaced and reassembled independently for use, or devices with other step sizes are designed separately, so that the requirement of asynchronous long switching cannot be met directly.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the defects in the prior art, the application provides the microwave program-controlled step attenuator with the switchable step length, which realizes multi-step switching, can keep better stability on the basis of realizing switching, can reduce the requirements on the performance and the processing precision of the beryllium copper material of the edge line, improves the working stability of the program-controlled attenuator, and reduces the assembly difficulty.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention adopts the following technique:

A microwave program-controlled step attenuator comprises a plurality of steps of step length switching units;

The stepping length switching unit comprises a through sheet fixedly arranged, at least two attenuation sheets arranged above the through sheet at intervals, and a group of movable reeds respectively positioned at two ends of the attenuation sheets;

each movable reed is respectively connected with a push rod, and the push rods are movably arranged along the axis of the push rods and are used for driving the movable reed so that the inner ends of the movable reeds contact with the attenuation sheet or the straight-through sheet;

The outer end of the movable reed is rotationally connected with one end of a fixed reed which is fixedly arranged through a rotating column, and the push rod is rotationally arranged around the rotating column corresponding to the movable reed which is connected with the push rod and is used for driving the movable reed to rotate so as to enable the inner end of the movable reed to be switched to correspond to different attenuation sheets;

the other end of the fixed reed is connected with the outer end of the movable reed of the adjacent one-stage stepping length switching unit in a rotating way through a rotating column or is vertically connected with the radio frequency connector.

Further, the movable reed and the fixed reed are arranged along the length direction of the attenuator, and the attenuation sheets in the stepping length switching unit are arranged at intervals along the width direction of the attenuator.

Further, the fixed reed is straight, the other end of the fixed reed is provided with a through hole, a convex column is formed at the connecting end of the radio frequency connector, and the convex column is matched with the through hole.

Further, the movable reed comprises a first horizontal section, a transition section and a second horizontal section which are connected in sequence, the inner end of the first horizontal section is used for contacting an attenuation sheet or a straight-through sheet, and the outer end of the second horizontal section is connected with the fixed reed in a rotating way through a rotating column.

Further, the push rod is connected in the first horizontal segment of movable reed, be equipped with the perforation on the first horizontal segment and with the spacing hole of perforation intercommunication, spacing Kong Kongkuan or aperture are less than the perforation aperture, the push rod top is equipped with the annular, the tank bottom diameter of annular is less than the hole width or the aperture of spacing hole, the lower lateral wall periphery diameter of annular is greater than the perforation aperture, form the limit head above the upper lateral wall of annular, the periphery diameter of limit head is less than the perforation aperture, be greater than the hole width or the aperture of spacing hole, during the application, the annular cooperates in spacing hole.

Further, the through sheet is horizontally arranged on the first support column and penetrates through the first medium column at the top of the first support column, the fixed reed is horizontally arranged on the second support column and penetrates through the second medium column at the top of the second support column, and the first support column and the second support column are arranged on the medium bottom plate. An air cavity is arranged on the medium bottom plate, and the stepping length switching unit is positioned in the air cavity. A channel is arranged on the medium bottom plate in a penetrating way, and the push rod penetrates through the channel.

The invention has the beneficial effects that:

1. The attenuator structure design scheme capable of switching in asynchronous length overcomes the defect that the traditional attenuator has only one attenuator structure design with fixed stepping length and does not greatly increase the structure size of the whole attenuator, and in addition to the attenuation sheets with different attenuation amounts, no additional structural parts are introduced, and the push rod is arranged to be movable along the axis and rotatable along the rotation axis of the connection part of the movable reed and the fixed reed so as to realize the displacement of the movable reed along the horizontal direction, thereby realizing the stepping length switching, having simple and ingenious structure, and not bringing vertical/vertical force in the switching process to influence the stability of the movable reed;

2. The scheme of the invention can be further expanded into a multi-stage structure, and the design of more attenuation combinations is realized through a multi-stage stepping length switching unit, so that the application range of the attenuator is further improved;

3. The connector and fixed reed (namely edge line) connecting structure is improved, the edge line is not required to be bent, the mechanical property requirement on the beryllium copper material of the edge line is lower, the cost of the beryllium copper material is reduced, the situation that the bent angle edge line deforms to a large extent under the influence of gravity or additional impact to cause disconnection of the coaxial connector is avoided, meanwhile, an elastic corrugated pipe is not required to be additionally arranged, the cost of parts is saved, the assembly difficulty of the connector is reduced, the problem that the corrugated pipe is high in production and processing difficulty caused by being used as a high-precision device can be avoided, and the situation that the performance of the device is reduced and disconnected due to the fact that the service life of the corrugated pipe is invalid can be omitted.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an internal structure of a microwave programmable step attenuator according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged view of a portion a in fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is another perspective view of the internal structure of the microwave programmable step attenuator according to the embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 4 is a top view of the internal structure of the microwave programmable step attenuator according to the embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 5 is a side view of a microwave programmable step attenuator internal structure having a multi-step length switching unit according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 6 is a diagram showing the simulation effect of the connection between the connector of the microwave program-controlled step attenuator and the fixed reed through the convex column and the through hole according to the embodiment of the application.

The reference numerals are 1-radio frequency connector, 11-convex column, 2-fixed reed, 23-rotary column, 3-movable reed, 31-contact part, 32-perforation, 33-limit hole, 4-push rod, 41-ring groove, 42-limit head, 5-attenuation piece, 6-second support column, 61-second medium column, 7-straight piece, 71-connecting part, 8-first support column, 81-first medium column, 9-medium bottom plate and 90-channel.

Detailed Description

For the purpose of making the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention more apparent, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention will be given with reference to the accompanying drawings, but the described embodiments of the present invention are some, but not all embodiments of the present invention.

The embodiment of the application provides a microwave program-controlled step attenuator, which comprises a plurality of step length switching units, wherein the step length switching units are shown in fig. 1, 3 and 4, and the step length switching units are shown in fig. 5. The first and second stages will be described in detail below as examples. Of course, the specific implementation manner may be a plurality of stages greater than two stages, and the specific implementation manner may be derived according to the two-stage setting manner, which is not described herein.

Specifically, the step length switching unit comprises a through sheet 7 (i.e. a through line) fixedly arranged, at least two damping sheets 5 arranged above the through sheet 7 at intervals, and a group of movable reeds 3 respectively positioned at two ends of the damping sheets 5, and specifically, in the embodiment, only two damping sheets 5 are shown, and according to the practical application, the number of the damping sheets is more than two, and the number of the damping sheets is increased according to the principle of the embodiment.

Specifically, the through sheet 7 is horizontally installed on the first support column 8 and is disposed through the first dielectric column 81 at the top of the first support column 8. The first support column 8 is mounted on the media floor 9. An air cavity is arranged on the medium bottom plate 9, and the stepping length switching unit is positioned in the air cavity. The medium bottom plate 9 is provided with a passage 90.

The damping sheet 5 is arranged in parallel at a preset distance above the straight-through sheet 7, the inner ends of the movable reeds 3 are positioned between the damping sheet 5 and the straight-through sheet 7, each movable reed 3 is respectively connected with a push rod 4, the push rods 4 vertically penetrate through the channel 90, specifically, the lower part of the medium bottom plate 9 penetrates into the air cavity and is arranged in a moving way along the axis of the medium bottom plate 9 so as to drive the inner ends of the movable reeds 3 to contact the damping sheet 5 or the straight-through sheet 7. Specifically, the inner end of the movable spring 3 has a contact portion 31, the two ends of the bottom surface of the damping sheet 5 have contact areas for contacting the contact portion 31 of the movable spring 3 to form a conducting link, and the through sheet 7 has a connection portion 71 for contacting and conducting with the contact portion 31 of the movable spring 3 at a corresponding position below each damping sheet 5.

The medium bottom plate 9 is provided with a second supporting column 6, the second supporting column 6 is horizontally provided with a fixed reed 2 (namely an edge line), and the fixed reed 2 is arranged through a second medium column 61 at the top of the second supporting column 6.

The movable reed 3 and the fixed reed 2 are arranged along the length direction of the attenuator, and the attenuation pieces 5 in the step length switching unit are arranged at intervals along the width direction of the attenuator.

The outer end of the movable reed 3 is rotationally connected with one end of the fixed reed 2 through a rotating column 23, and the push rod 4 is rotationally arranged around the corresponding rotating column 23 of the movable reed 3 connected with the push rod and is used for driving the movable reed 3 to rotate so as to enable the inner end of the movable reed 3 to be switched to correspond to different attenuation sheets 5.

In the case of only one step length switching unit, as shown in fig. 1, the other end of the fixed reed 2 is directly connected to the rf connector 1 vertically. In the case of the two-stage step length switching unit, as shown in fig. 5, the other end of the fixed reed 2 closest to the two ends in the length direction of the attenuator/air cavity is vertically connected with the radio frequency connector 1, and the other fixed reeds 2 between the adjacent step length switching units are rotatably connected with the outer ends of the movable reeds 3 of the adjacent one-stage step length switching units through the rotating column 23.

Preferably, in this embodiment, the conventional connection manner between the connector and the edge line is improved, as shown in fig. 2, the fixed reed 2 is straight, the other end of the fixed reed is provided with a through hole, the connection end of the radio frequency connector 1 is formed with a convex column 11, the convex column 11 is matched with the through hole, and then the matched position is fixed by conductive adhesive or electric welding. Through the structure, the requirements on the performance and the machining precision of the beryllium copper material of the edge line can be reduced, the working stability of the program-controlled attenuator is improved, and the assembly difficulty can be reduced while the fixed size of the attenuator is not changed. As shown in FIG. 6, s (1, 1) is the reflection coefficient, and the standing wave can basically meet the use requirement of DC-26.5 GHz.

Specifically, referring to fig. 1-3, the movable reed 3 includes a first horizontal segment, a transition segment, and a second horizontal segment that are sequentially connected, and the contact portion 31 is located at an inner end of the first horizontal segment, and is used for contacting the attenuation piece 5 or the through piece 7, and an outer end of the second horizontal segment is rotationally connected with the fixed reed 2 through the rotation column 23.

The push rod 4 is connected to the first horizontal section of the movable reed 3, so that when the push rod 4 moves vertically, the movable reed 3 matches the vertical movement change through the middle transition section, thereby being capable of keeping the first horizontal section and the second horizontal section in a horizontal posture to a large extent, being beneficial to keeping the contact effectiveness of the contact part 31 and the horizontally arranged attenuation piece 5 or the through piece 7, and being beneficial to keeping the stability of the rotation connection of the outer end of the second horizontal section and the horizontal fixed reed 2.

As one of more specific embodiments, the first horizontal section is provided with a perforation 32 and a limiting hole 33 communicated with the perforation 32, the perforation 32 is used for allowing the upper portion of the push rod 4 to pass through, the limiting hole 33 is used for allowing the push rod 4 to be clamped in, and upper and lower limiting is formed, so that when the push rod 4 moves vertically or rotates along the rotating column 23, the movable reed 3 can be effectively driven to move. Specifically, the limiting hole 33 may be a bar-shaped hole or a circular hole, the hole width or aperture of the limiting hole 33 is smaller than that of the perforation 32, the top of the push rod 4 is provided with a ring groove 41, the bottom diameter of the ring groove 41 is smaller than that of the limiting hole 33, the outer peripheral diameter of the lower side wall of the ring groove 41 is larger than that of the perforation 32, a limiting head 42 is formed above the upper side wall of the ring groove 41, the outer peripheral diameter of the limiting head 42 is smaller than that of the perforation 32 and larger than that of the limiting hole 33, when the limiting head 42 passes through the perforation 32, the lower side wall of the ring groove 41 abuts against the bottom surface of the movable reed 3, then the push rod 4 is moved to enable the ring groove 41 to be matched with the limiting hole 33, and further the upper side wall and the lower side wall of the limiting hole 33 are limited to the movable reed 3.

When the movable reed 3 is applied, the movable reed 3 can be switched between the attenuation sheet 5 and the straight-through sheet 7 through the movement of the push rod 4 along the axial direction of the push rod 4, and meanwhile, the movable reed 3 can be horizontally displaced through the rotation of the push rod 4 along the rotating column 23 so as to be switched between different attenuation sheets 5. As shown in fig. 5, when the two-stage step length switching means is provided, the movable reed 3 is horizontally displaced by the push rod 4 in each step length switching means, so that a plurality of attenuation amount combination designs can be realized. Furthermore, the serial connection of the multistage stepping length switching units can achieve more attenuation combination according to the structure mode, and the application range of the program-controlled stepping attenuator is greatly improved.

The scheme of the embodiment can ensure that the program-controlled attenuator has good working performance at DC-26.5 GHz. Meanwhile, the structural design scheme of the attenuator capable of switching the asynchronous incoming length is provided, a new idea is provided for combination of more attenuation, the multi-stage stepping length switching design is provided, and the application range of the program-controlled stepping attenuator is greatly improved.

The above description is only of the preferred embodiments of the present application and is not intended to limit the application, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present application without departing from the spirit and scope of the application.

Claims

1. The microwave program-controlled step attenuator is characterized by comprising a plurality of steps of step length switching units;

The stepping length switching unit comprises a straight-through sheet (7) fixedly arranged, at least two attenuation sheets (5) arranged above the straight-through sheet (7) at intervals, and a group of movable reeds (3) respectively positioned at two ends of the attenuation sheets (5);

each movable reed (3) is respectively connected with a push rod (4), and the push rods (4) are movably arranged along the axis of the movable reed and are used for driving the inner ends of the movable reeds (3) to contact with the attenuation sheet (5) or the through sheet (7);

The outer end of the movable reed (3) is rotationally connected with one end of a fixed reed (2) which is fixedly arranged through a rotating column (23), and a push rod (4) is rotationally arranged around the rotating column (23) corresponding to the movable reed (3) which is connected with the push rod, and is used for driving the movable reed (3) to rotate so as to enable the inner end of the movable reed (3) to be switched to correspond to different attenuation sheets (5);

The other end of the fixed reed (2) is rotationally connected with the outer end of the movable reed (3) of the adjacent one-stage stepping length switching unit through a rotating column (23) or is vertically connected with the radio frequency connector (1);

The movable reed (3) and the fixed reed (2) are arranged along the length direction of the attenuator, and the attenuation sheets (5) in the stepping length switching unit are arranged at intervals along the width direction of the attenuator.

2. The microwave-programmed step attenuator according to claim 1, characterized in that the fixed reed (2) is straight, the other end of the fixed reed is provided with a through hole, the connecting end of the radio frequency connector (1) is provided with a convex column (11), and the convex column (11) is matched with the through hole.

3. The microwave program-controlled step attenuator according to claim 1, wherein the movable reed (3) comprises a first horizontal section, a transition section and a second horizontal section which are sequentially connected, the inner end of the first horizontal section is used for contacting the attenuation sheet (5) or the through sheet (7), and the outer end of the second horizontal section is rotationally connected with the fixed reed (2) through a rotating column (23).

4. A microwave programmed step attenuator according to claim 3, characterized in that the push rod (4) is connected to a first horizontal section of the movable reed (3), the first horizontal section is provided with a perforation (32) and a limit hole (33) communicated with the perforation (32), the hole width or aperture of the limit hole (33) is smaller than that of the perforation (32), the top of the push rod (4) is provided with a ring groove (41), the bottom diameter of the ring groove (41) is smaller than that of the limit hole (33), the outer diameter of the lower side wall of the ring groove (41) is larger than that of the perforation (32), a limit head (42) is formed above the upper side wall of the ring groove (41), the outer diameter of the limit head (42) is smaller than that of the perforation (32), and is larger than that of the limit hole (33), and the ring groove (41) is matched with the limit hole (33) when the microwave programmed step attenuator is applied.

5. The microwave program-controlled step attenuator according to claim 1, wherein the through-piece (7) is horizontally installed on the first support column (8) and is arranged through a first dielectric column (81) at the top of the first support column (8), the fixed reed (2) is horizontally installed on the second support column (6) and is arranged through a second dielectric column (61) at the top of the second support column (6), and the first support column (8) and the second support column (6) are installed on the dielectric bottom plate (9).

6. The microwave-programmed step attenuator according to claim 5, characterized in that the medium bottom plate (9) is provided with a channel (90) therethrough, and the push rod (4) is arranged through the channel (90).

7. The microwave-programmed step attenuator according to claim 5, characterized in that the dielectric substrate (9) is provided with an air cavity, and the step length switching unit is located in the air cavity.

8. A microwave programmable step attenuator according to claim 1, characterized in that the step length switching unit comprises two attenuation pads (5) arranged at intervals.