A Fault Tolerant Ka-band Power Amplifier Based on Corporate Combining for Radar Applications

A Ka-band solid state power amplifier for radar applications is presented. The amplifier uses sixteen low power modules combined by using a corporate network made with 90° hybrids. The proposed solution gives a good power combination and high robustness against auto oscillations. Moreover, the structure of the amplifier guarantees the so-called graceful degradation of the performance, meaning that if one or more amplifier module fails, the output power is only slightly affected. The amplifier has been fabricated and the experimental results validate the proposed design.