Broadband Power Amplifier Hardware to Support RF Convergence

In response to the Air Force Solicitation AF222-0020 requesting development of an ultra-wideband high efficiency power amplifier to support a wide range of use-cases, the Space Micro/ASU team proposes to architect, design, and simulate an efficient gallium nitride (GaN) based power amplifier (PA) that targets a contiguous operational frequency band from 2 to 18 GHz. As detailed in the Air Force’s Phase I solicitation, the designed PA will exhibit at least 2 W of output power, although Space Micro is targeting 5 W output power to support its NanoComm SDR product. Additionally, the Space Micro PA will support this wide frequency band of operation with higher than 40% efficiency over the entire operating band and will maintain a VSWR between 1:1 and 2:1 in the architecture. The proposed PA will allow for the simultaneous transmission of communications signals and will be verified in simulation during the Phase 1 program with 4 signals using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) spread across the design’s frequency range.