<p>The goal of this project was to design an airborne radio
frequency circuit card that was very light weight, occupied a
small volume, and operated from 20 Mhz to 1500 Mhz. The
circuit card being reported on is called an RF multicoupler,
and is one of two cards used in a radio frequency distribution
unit (RFD). This unit interfaces a large number of receivers
to various antennas.</p>
<p>
In the past this type of circuitry was done by cascading
discrete connectorized RF components together with coaxial
cable. As technology progressed the discrete surface mount or
pin through RF components were mounted on single layer
fiberglass or Duroid circuit cards. The next generation
improved circuit density by incorporating a multilayer RF
circuit card in which RF and digital control signals were run
on the internal layers.</p>
<p>
The RF multilayer circuit card in this project represents the state-of-the-art for high density RF circuitry. The board
material is a teflon/fiberglass composite. The discrete RF
components are surface mount and the passive higher frequency
components are physically incorporated into the RF circuit
card itself as stripline RF circuits.</p>
<p>
Thus, by using advanced board materials, a multilayer
construction, integral stripline components, and a light
weight aluminum housing, it was possible to achieve dramatic
weight reductions.</p>
<p>Finally, much effort was expended in "up front
engineering" to ensure that this RFD was capable of being
transitioned from a laboratory prototype to a production unit
capable of being manufactured in large quantities.</p> / Master of Engineering
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/41140 |
| Date | 16 February 2010 |
| Creators | Ferro, John Francis |
| Contributors | Systems Engineering, Pratt, Timothy J., Riad, Sedki Mohamed, Davis, William A. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master's project |
| Format | BTD, application/pdf |
| Relation | LD5655.V851_1991.F477.pdf |
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