Abstract:
Background Owing to their simple configuration, stable operating behavior, and high electronic efficiency, magnetrons have been extensively employed in high-power microwave applications. Nevertheless, the output capability of a single microwave source is inherently constrained, making it difficult to satisfy the increasing demands of high-power applications. Magnetron array configurations offer an effective approach for enhancing the peak power of microwave systems.
Purpose To address the demand for frequency controllability and output consistency in large-scale magnetron arrays, this work integrates the advantages of injection locking and mutual coupling locking and proposes an injection-locking-based amplitude consistency control scheme for coupled magnetron arrays.
Methods Five magnetrons are interconnected through directional couplers and coaxial lines to form a cascaded mutually coupled structure, in which an external signal is injected solely into the central magnetron to pull and control the operating frequency of the entire array via coupling paths. High-power experimental measurements were performed to systematically collect and analyze the output signals under five operating conditions, including free-running operation, mutual coupling only, and external injection at frequencies of 2.466 GHz, 2.465 GHz, and 2.464 GHz.
Results The experimental results indicate that introducing an external injection signal under the mutually phase-locked condition modifies the overall frequency characteristics of the cascaded magnetron array, thereby affecting the amplitude distribution of the array output signals. Moreover, effective regulation of the output amplitude of the magnetron array can be realized by tuning the frequency and power of the injected signal. The dispersion of output amplitudes under different conditions is quantitatively characterized using the sample variance of the power spectral density peak of the output signal, and the results show that, at an injection power of 100 W, the variance decreases from 1.868 to 0.446, indicating a significant improvement in amplitude consistency.
Conclusions This approach offers strong scalability and practical applicability and is well suited for coherent power combining and phase-scanning applications in large-scale magnetron array systems.
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