Design of a High-Performance Ultra-Wideband Monocycle Pulse Generator

Abstract

A high-performance ultra-wideband (UWB) monocycle pulse generator is described in this paper. The pulse generator circuit is mainly composed of avalanche transistor, step recovery diode (SRD), Schottky diode (SD) and microstrip lines. The proposed circuit solution utilizes the avalanche effect of avalanche transistor to produce driver pulses with high amplitude and sharp edges, which can drive the SRD included in a universal microstrip pulse forming circuit effectively to produce high-amplitude Gaussian pulses. Monocycle pulses are then generated by an additional pulse forming network. The circuit, simulated in the radiofrequency software ADS, can generate monocycle pulse whose pulse full width is 600ps, pulse amplitude is 6.3V peak-to-peak and pulse repetition rate is 10MHz with a ringing level of -24dB and good symmetry. With the features such as high pulse amplitude and stable performance this pulse generator is applicable to UWB system.

Transistor Avalanche Non-Coherent Pulse Generator

“…Further improvement on the frequency operation can be achieved by the use of SRD devices in series with the avalanche current, so that a multiplier frequency effect can be achieved [13].…”

A novel dual-BJT avalanche pulse generator with mixer effect

“…Some sub-nanosecond pulse generators use step-recovery diodes (SRDs) [5][6][7]. Short pulse generation and pulse shaping designs using avalanche transistors combined with SRDs were described in [8,9]. Hence, the avalanche effect transistor is the one that offers promising solutions for the needs of areas such as UWB communications [3,10,11], radar systems [2,[12][13][14][15]] and many others.…”