evelopment and Automation of Microwave Source (YIG Oscillator) to Generate Frequency from 2GHz to 18GHz using Microcontroller

Abstract

Microwave sources are at the heart of many professional hi-tech systems across the world and also used in research application. In today’s market microwave sources are very costly, so we try to develop cost effective equipment based on microcontroller and YIG oscillator. This project involves the development of 2.0 to 18.0 GHz microwave source in which the tuning signal needs to be provided to YIG oscillator by some external microcontroller based circuit. According to applied tuning signal (0-10V) the YIG oscillator will generate the frequency in microwave range. Here we use highly accurate and high precision DAC along with microcontroller to generate very precise voltage signal so that we get the accuracy in terms of MHz. Further, two modes of operation are also included in the system for microwave frequency generation. One is Ramp mode, in which frequency will continuously sweep. Second is Step mode, it is used to generate microwave frequency from the microwave source. This frequency range will be useful to detect resonance in the plasma. These two modes are used to find the electron density of plasma in steady plasma and pulse plasma respectively.