Generation of high-peak-power, microwave ultrashort pulses (USPs) is desirable for ultrawideband communications and radar/remote sensing. A variety of microwave USP generators exist today, or are described in the literature, and have benefits and limitations depending on the application. A new class of pulse compressors for generating USPs using electromagnetic time-reversal (TR) techniques has been developed in the last decade and is the topic of this article. This article presents a compact TR microwave pulse-compression cavity that has ultrawide bandwidth (BW) (5–18 GHz) and employs waveguide feeds for high-peak-power output over the entire band. The system uses a time-reversal-based pulse compression scheme with one-bit processing (OBTR) to achieve high-peak power. We present results from full-wave simulations and measurements showing compression gain exceeding 21.2 dB, 22% efficiency, and measured instantaneous peak output powers reaching 39.2 kW. These are all record results for this type of pulse compressor. In addition, we present a new analysis of variation in compression gain due to impulse response recording time and BW variation, new experimental work on the effect of mode stirrer position on compression gain, and a novel RF switch-based technique for reducing time-sidelobes while using OBTR.

中文翻译：

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采用时间反转技术的紧凑型、高增益、高功率、超宽带微波脉冲压缩器

产生高峰值功率、微波超短脉冲 (USP) 是超宽带通信和雷达/遥感所需要的。目前存在多种微波 USP 发生器，或在文献中有所描述，并且根据应用的不同具有优势和局限性。在过去十年中开发了一类使用电磁时间反转 (TR) 技术生成 USP 的新型脉冲压缩器，这也是本文的主题。本文介绍了一种紧凑型 TR 微波脉冲压缩腔，它具有超宽带宽 (BW) (5–18 GHz)，并采用波导馈电在整个频段上实现高峰值功率输出。该系统使用基于时间反转的脉冲压缩方案和一位处理 (OBTR) 来实现高峰值功率。我们展示了全波模拟和测量的结果，显示压缩增益超过 21.2 dB，效率为 22%，并且测得的瞬时峰值输出功率达到 39.2 kW。这些都是这种类型的脉冲压缩器的记录结果。此外，我们对由于脉冲响应记录时间和 BW 变化引起的压缩增益变化进行了新的分析，关于模式搅拌器位置对压缩增益的影响的新实验工作，以及一种用于减少时间旁瓣的新型基于 RF 开关的技术在使用 OBTR 时。