On October 1, 2009 junior Christopher Greg Brinton had the honor of representing TCNJ at the IEEE’s (The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) 24th Annual Symposium and Mini Show. The purpose of this show was to “present a series of 9 lectures describing the state of the art in Microwave, RF, and Wireless Communications technologies by leaders in their respective fields.” Chris presented alongside technology chairs, vice presidents, and technical managers of numerous companies and corporations as well as representatives of various research groups.
Chris gave a half hour speech on Sensitivity and Mitigation of Reverse IMD in High Power Amplifiers. Essentially his speech focused on Reverse Inter-modulation Distortion which is the occurs as a “result of unwanted signals entering an amplifier through its output port and beating with the main signal in the amplifier to produce unwanted spectral products.” Although such conditions could exist at cell telephone sites, broadcast facilities and even on satellites this major problem is often ignored by RF’s and communications engineers.
Luckily Chris, Dr. Alan Katz (Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at TCNJ, President of Linearizer Technology, supervisor), and Dave McGee (supervisor) did a study on the issue. After constructing a test bed the Reverse IMD performance of a total of seven amplifiers was tested, with a wide range of results. During the study two techniques, termed isolation and phasing, were implemented and both resulted in considerable reduction in IM products.
Chris Brinton hopes that in the future such techniques will be used to significantly limit Reverse Inter-modal Distortion from all transmitters.
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