Miniaturized All-Reconfigurable Dual-Mode Dielectric Filter Using Piezomotors for Future Satellite Communications

A compact fully-reconfigurable C-band pseudoelliptic bandpass filter for the applications of next-generation flexible satellite systems is introduced. The filter is realized using a dual-mode TM-mode dielectric resonator attributing ultra-high miniaturization and volume saving > 70%. A wide 790 MHz tuning window is obtained from 4.72 - 5.51 GHz with a constant bandwidth of 50 MHz. Additionally, two independently reconfigurable transmissions zeros are introduced through the use of a doublet configuration and non-resonating modes. A piezomotor-based fixture is utilized for accurate fine-tuning. The measured results show good agreement with simulations. The prototype filter has demonstrated high-Q measurements across the whole tuning band (> 500) while maintaining a low insertion loss of less than 1 dB and return loss higher than 18 dB.