SBIR-STTR Award

High-Power Ferrite Stripline Circulators/Isolators
Award last edited on: 3/19/2024

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
NASA : MSFC
Total Award Amount
$70,000
Award Phase
1
Solicitation Topic Code
B4.03
Principal Investigator
Hoton How

Company Information

Hotech Inc

262 Clifton Street
Belmont, MA 02478
   (617) 484-8444
   hotonhow@hotech.com
   www.hotech.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 05
County: Middlesex

Phase I

Contract Number: NAS8-03024
Start Date: 12/31/2002    Completed: 7/1/2003
Phase I year
2003
Phase I Amount
$70,000
This proposal addresses the special needs of NASA facilitating the use of space for commercial products and services. With regards to space communications antenna array systems are regularly installed with spacecrafts and satellites to transmit electromagnetic signals at high power. As such, circulators/isolators are needed to separate signal paths in T/R modules, providing protection over the receiver circuitries avoiding high-power incidence. When applied at high power, nonlinearity sets in at the ferrite junction area causing communication channels to couple with each other. This is called intermodulation which ultimately limits the usefulness of a ferrite junction to be applicable at excessive power levels. In the past we have analyzed this nonlinear problem and have identified the origin for intermodulation. We envision two techniques to be effective. The first technique is based on the DC consideration ensuring circulation action to occur without activating the adverse terms in the equations of motion responsible for intermodulation. The second technique is AC in nature, demanding the circulator operation to induce minimum excursion in the transverse component of the magnetization vector. Temperature compensated ferrites will be considered in Phase II, giving rise to stabilized operation of the circulator applied at high power. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS The Phase I research admits immediate and unique applications of power circulators/isolators to be applied for communications over distances, for example, a relay station in the continent, a ship in the ocean, an airline jet in the sky, a satellite outside the earth?s atmosphere, and a spacecraft in space. To ensure high-quality communication intermodulation interference has to be immune from a circulator/isolator junction, and to our knowledge there is no such device existent in the current market. The success of this proposed SBIR research will no doubt fulfill the need of the market, and hence its commercial potential is tremendous

Phase II

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: 00/00/00    Completed: 00/00/00
Phase II year
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Phase II Amount
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