A Dually Polarized Six-Port Junction Based on Polarization-Selective Coupling for Polarization-Inclusive Remote Sensing

Enabling the dual-polarization feature in microwave components is proposed and demonstrated based on polarization-selective coupling (PSC). The PSC structure consists of two waveguides which are fused together in parallel. When one of the waveguides is excited by dually polarized wave, the vertical polarization remains in the excited waveguide while the horizontal polarization is fully coupled to the other one. The six-port junction is the fundamental module for developing interferometric transceivers. This junction is presented in this paper in a new form. In the new form, the six-port junction applies its functionality on two orthogonal polarizations simultaneously. This allows the implementation of a polarization-inclusive remote sensing application. The dually polarized six-port junction is invented by adding the dually polarized feature to each of its constituent components, namely, the power dividers, the hybrid 3-dB couplers, and the circularly bent phase shifters. These components are analytically studied and reinvented to be dually polarized using the aforementioned PSC. The dually polarized six-port junction is prototyped and measured. The simulated and measured results are found to be in a good agreement.