Design and Parametric Analysis of a Rat-Race Power Divider for 5G Applications

Power dividers, including rat-race divider, play a crucial role in wireless communication systems. The rat-race divider has been known in microwave engineering for many decades, which is used in numerous applications such as Mixers, power dividers/combiners, phase shifters, and baluns. To use this rat-race coupler as a power divider, an input signal is applied at one port, the outputs at two other ports are equal in magnitude, but 180 degrees out of phase. This work presents a parametric study of a conventional rat-race coupler, which is intended for 5G lower band applications, using the CST simulator. The parametric study aims to demonstrate the impact of certain parameters such as physical dimensions and electrical properties on the characteristics of our designed rat-race in terms of bandwidth, power ratio, and isolation. The proposed structure of standard rat-race power divider with its four ports operates at the frequency of 3.5 GHz.