A Uni-Planar Feeding Network for Monopulse Tracking Radar

In this paper, a planar feeding network based on a novel 180° couplers is presented for monopulse tracking radar. The new 180° coupler is designed to feature symmetrical ports allocation between Σ/Δ ports and input ports by re-structuring the conventional rat race coupler and inventing novel compact crossover. It is the first time that a cost-effective planar monopulse comparator is investigated to untether it from complex multilayer designs or expensive waveguide solutions. To prove the concept, a comparator network operating at 5.8GHz is designed, and it shows that the full-wave electromagnetic simulation agrees well with ideal circuit simulation.