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design_coupler(1)	    General Commands Manual	     design_coupler(1)

NAME
       design_coupler  -  for designing	directional couplers (part of the atlc
       package)

SYNOPSIS
       design_coupler [-C][-d][-e][-H height][-L length][-q]
       [s fstep][-Z Zo]	CF fmin	fmax

WARNING
       This man	page is	not a complete set of documentation -  the  complexity
       of  the	atlc  project makes man	pages not an ideal way to document it,
       although	out of completeness, man pages are produced.  The  best	 docu-
       mentation that was current at the time this version was produced	should
       be found	on your	hard drive, usually at
       /usr/local/share/atlc/docs/html-docs/index.html
       although	 it  might  be elsewhere if your system	administrator chose to
       install the package elsewhere. Sometimes, errors	are corrected  in  the
       documentation  and  placed at http://atlc.sourceforge.net/ before a new
       release of atlc is released.  Please, if	you notice a problem with  the
       documentation - even spelling errors and	typos, please let me know.

DESCRIPTION
       design_coupler  is  used	to design directional couplers.	It it not used
       to analyse couplers for which you know the dimensions. Instead,	it  is
       used  but  when	you require a coupler to have specific properties, but
       don't know the required odd and even mode impedances  or	 the  required
       physical	dimensions that	will achieve those required properties.

       As  a  minimum  the user	must specify the coupling factor CF in dB, the
       minimum frequency fmin in MHz and the maximum frequency	fmax  in  MHz.
       With this information, the design_coupler will
       a)  Tell	 you  the required odd and even	mode impedances	Zodd and Zeven
       assuming	the coupler is for 50 Ohms and assuming	the coupler  is	 is  a
       quarter wave long, which	might be an impractical	length.	There a	numer-
       ous ways	of making a coupler having those impedances and	design_coupler
       does  not  (without  the	addition of options mentioned later), tell you
       how to make such	a coupler.  b) Given you the frequency response	of the
       coupler,	making the assumptions about the 50 Ohm	impedance and quarter-
       wave length. The	frequency response is calculated at 5  points  in  the
       range specified by fmin and fmax.

       By  use	of  the	 -Z  'Zo' and -L 'length' and -f 'fstep' options it it
       posible to specify  different  a	 different  characteristic  impedance,
       length and different frequency steps to display the frequency response.

       The computed  values of Zodd and	Zeven required are valid no matter how
       the coupler is design physically. So no matter whether it's implemented
       on  a PCB, air spaced or	whatever, the above impedances are correct and
       the frequency response is correct.

       The -d option causes design_coupler to not only report the required odd
       and even	modem impedances but also the physical dimensions of a coupler
       that achieves these properties! Currently, the only stucture for	 which
       it is possible to compute the physical dimentions is two	wide edge-cou-
       pled striplines between two wide	plates like this:

       -----------------------------------------------------  ^
       |						   |  |
       |		  Er				   |  |
       |						   |  |
       |	    -----------	      -----------	   |  H
       |	    <----w----><--s--><----w---->	   |  |
       |						   |  |
       |						   |  |
       |						   |  |
       -----------------------------------------------------  v
       <-------------------------W------------------------->

       The  width  W  must  be much greater than the height of the coupler and
       generally it is assumed that this width will at least 2*w+s*5*H,	other-
       wise the	calculations will be incorrect.	In order  to  calculate	 these
       dimenisions  an	analytical  method is used, which is only valid	if the
       width W is infinity, but	should be resonably  good  assuming  W	is  at
       least 2*w+s+5*H.

       It  is later intended to	enable design coupler to use other structures,
       which migth be more suitable for	construction, such as microstrip  cou-
       plers on	PCBs, but for now at least, it is only possible	to compute the
       physical	dimensions of the coupler using	the above stucture. For	strong
       coupling	(less than 20 dB or so), the dimenions calculated might	be im-
       practical,  as  the  spacing s will be so small.	However, for weak cou-
       pling, the physcical dimensions are practical.

OPTIONS
       -C
       print copyright,	licensing and copying information.
       -d
       Design a	coupler, using	two  edgle-coupled  stiplines  inside  a  wide
       4-sided rectangular enclosure.

       -e
       Priont an example of how	to use design_coupler
       -H height
       Specify	the  height  of	 the enclosure in some convenient unit.	By de-
       fault, a	height of 1 unit is assumed, but by use	of this	option	it  is
       possible	 to specify any	height you want. Since its the ratio of	dimen-
       sions that is important,	not the	absolute values, this just scales  all
       the  other dimensions by	the specified height. It is just a conveneince
       for the user.
       -L length
       Specifies the coupler length in metres. By default the coupler  is  as-
       sumed  to  be a quarter-wave, but this allow any	length you want. Don't
       chose a length that is a	multiple of a half-wave	though,	as  this  will
       make it impossible to couple any	power out.  -q
       This  is	the 'quite' switch and causes design_coupler to	print out less
       information. One	can use	-qq to cause the even less output.
       -s fstep	Causes design_couler to	print out the  frequency  response  at
       different  steps	 from  the default 5 values. fstep must	be in MHz. The
       default value of	fstep is obviously (fmax-fman)/5.
       Z Zo
       Causes design_coupler to	compute	properties of an impedance Zo  (sheci-
       fied in Ohms). The default value	for Zo is 50 Ohms.

EXAMPLES
       Run  design_coupler  gives examples of its use. However,	here are those
       same examples.

       Here are	a examples of how to use design_coupler	In the examples, the %
       sign is used in front of	anything you must type which is	what you  will
       probably	 see  when using the csh or tcsh as a shell. It	would probably
       be a $ sign if using the	sh or bash shell.

       To find the odd and even	mode impedances	and frequency response of a 50
       Ohm coupler, covering 130 to 170	MHz, with a coupling coefficient of 30
       dB:

       % design_coupler	30 130 170

       Note the	frequency response is symmetrical about	the  centre  frequency
       at 0.192	dB below that wanted. You may wish to redesign this for	a cou-
       pling  coefficient  of about 29.9 dB, so	the maximum deviation from the
       ideal 30.0 dB never exceeds 0.1 dB Note the length suggested is	0.5  m
       (nearly	20") is	a quarter wave at the centre frequency of 150 MHz. You
       might find this a bit too long, so let's	specify	a length of 0.25 m.

       % design_coupler	-L 0.25	30 130 170

       What you	may notice is that while the coupling to the coupled  port  is
       exactly	30  dB below the input power at	the centre frequency (150 MHz)
       it is no	longer symmetrical about the centre  frequency.	 Also,	devia-
       tions from the ideal 30 dB are now much larger, with a maximum error of
       1.012  dB  Unlike the case when the length is the default quarter wave,
       there is	not much you can do about this,	since the deviations occur  in
       both directions.

       Now  assume  you	are reasonably happy with the response when the	length
       is 250 mm but would like	to see the response at every 2.5 MHz. This can
       be done using the -s option to design_coupler.

       % design_coupler	-L 0.25	-s 2.5 30 130 170

       Assuming	the performance	is acceptable, the dimensions of  the  coupler
       can  be	determined by adding the -d option. This will design a coupler
       that must look like the structure  below.  The  two  inner  conductors,
       which  are spaced equally between the top and bottom edges of the outer
       conductor, must be very thin.  These are	placed along the length	 of  a
       box  of	width  W,  height  H and of a length L determined by the user,
       which in	this case is 250 mm.

       -----------------------------------------------------  ^
       |						   |  |
       |		  Er				   |  |
       |						   |  |
       |	    -----------	      -----------	   |  H
       |	    <----w----><--s--><----w---->	   |  |
       |						   |  |
       |						   |  |
       |						   |  |
       -----------------------------------------------------  v
       <-------------------------W------------------------->

       The program reports: H =	1.0, ; w = 1.44	; s = 0.44 The height  of  the
       box  H must be small compared to	the length L, (perhaps no more than 7%
       of the length), or 17.5 mm in this case,	with a length of 250 mm,  oth-
       erwise fringing effects will be significant. The	width of the structure
       W  should  be  as  large	 as possible. The program suggests making this
       5*H+2*w+s. The 7% and 5*H+2*w+s are educated guesses, rather than exact
       figures.	 There	is  no	problem	 in  making  the  width	  larger  than
       5*H+2*w+s. The length L must be kept at 250 mm. The RATIO of the	dimen-
       sions H,	w and s	(but not L or W	must be	kept constant. W just needs to
       be sufficiently large - it is uncritical.

       If  you	happened to have some 15 mm square brass available, then using
       that for	the side-walls would require that H becomes 15*1.0 = 15	mm,  w
       = 15*1.44 = 21.6	mm  and	s = 15*0.44 = 6.6 mm

       There is	no need	to compute the above scaling with a calculator,	as us-
       ing  The	-H option allows one to	specify	the height H. The program then
       reports the exact dimensions for	the length L, height H,	w, s and  sug-
       gests a minimum width for W.

       In summary we have:
	   30 dB coupler +1.02 dB / -0.78 dB for 130 to	170 MHz
	   Length L = 250 mm, height H = 15 mm,	stripline spacing s = 6.3 mm
	    stripline width w =	21.6 mm	enclosure width	W >= 124 mm

       By  default,  design_coupler prints a lot of information	to the screen.
       This can	be reduced by the -q option or reduced to only one  line  with
       -qq  Other  options include -Z to change	the impedance from the default
       50 Ohms and -C to see the fully copyright, Licensing  and  distribution
       information

FILES
       No files	are created at all.

SEE ALSO
       atlc(1)
       create_bmp_for_circ_in_circ(1)	 create_bmp_for_circ_in_rect(1)	  cre-
       ate_bmp_for_microstrip_coupler(1)    create_bmp_for_rect_cen_in_rect(1)
       create_bmp_for_rect_cen_in_rect_coupler(1)			  cre-
       ate_bmp_for_rect_in_circ(1)     create_bmp_for_rect_in_rect(1)	  cre-
       ate_bmp_for_stripline_coupler(1)		      create_bmp_for_symmetri-
       cal_stripline(1)	find_optimal_dimensions_for_microstrip_coupler(1)
       readbin(1)

       http://atlc.sourceforge.net		  - Home page
       http://sourceforge.net/projects/atlc	  - Download area
       atlc-X.Y.Z/docs/html-docs/index.html	  - HTML docs
       atlc-X.Y.Z/docs/qex-december-1996/design_coupler.pdf - theory paper
       atlc-X.Y.Z/examples			  - examples

Dr. David Kirkby	   atlc-4.4.2 10th Sept	2003	     design_coupler(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=design_coupler&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

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