Design and Analysis of a Wideband Four-Way Waveguide Power Combiner for High-Power Applications in C-Band

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the design and performance of a wideband four-way waveguide power combiner tailored for high-power applications in the Cband frequency range. To enhance the electrical characteristics across the wide bandwidth, a novel multi-stepped conducting cone matching structure is introduced. Additionally, power breakdown analysis is performed to estimate the breakdown power threshold of the proposed combiner. Simulation results demonstrate remarkable performance metrics: the waveguide power combiner achieves a -20 dB reflection bandwidth over 13.5% across all waveguide ports, along with a maximum insertion loss of 0.1 dB. Furthermore, the proposed combiner obtains a high isolation level, surpassing -25 dB, and maintains a minimal phase deviation of 0.15 degrees among the input ports. The breakdown power simulation also demonstrates that the combiner can operate at a total input power of 33 kW without experiencing gas discharging. The proposed waveguide power combiner shows great promise as a potential candidate for high-power applications.