500 W Ka-band helix-TWT: Transition from development to production

As part of an on-going effort to develop high-power, high-efficiency, compact millimeter-wave helix traveling-wave tubes (TWTs) for next generation military and broadband commercial satellite uplink applications, L-3 ETI has developed the 8926HB, a 500 W CW Ka-band helix-TWT, in 2007 under IR&D...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chong, C.K., Forster, J.W., Ramay, M.L., Sneary, S.K., Tamashiro, R.N., Xiaoling Zhai
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Automotive engineering
Communications technology
Design engineering
Electron tubes
Linearity
Military communication
Power generation
Production
Testing
Thermal resistance
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:As part of an on-going effort to develop high-power, high-efficiency, compact millimeter-wave helix traveling-wave tubes (TWTs) for next generation military and broadband commercial satellite uplink applications, L-3 ETI has developed the 8926HB, a 500 W CW Ka-band helix-TWT, in 2007 under IR&D funding. At the end of this development phase, three key areas of improvement were identified and the necessary design adjustments were implemented in the production TWT. In late 2008, L-3 ETI has launched the first production program of the 8926HB (and the 8926HA which is a 500 W Peak / 350 W CW version) for combined orders of twenty one TWTs (QTY 16 of the 8926HB and QTY 5 of the 8926HA at this time) operating from 28 to 30 GHz. This paper discusses the performance of the production TWTs with an emphasis on the verification of the design improvements.
DOI:10.1109/IVELEC.2009.5193370