Continuously varying coupled transmission lines applied to design band-pass filters

This article presents a technique to analyze and optimize Continuously Varying Transmission Lines (CVTL's), used to design microwave band-pass fitters in planar technology. For millimeters waves, radiation losses can increase quickly, especially for sharp discontinuities in planar circuits. In this approach, rather than taking account of this effect in a full-wave analysis, we generate structures without discontinuities. Moreover, the line shape is optimized to reduce spurious responses out of the band-pass. For several filters, measurements are compared with simulation results. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.