Synthesis of tapered transmission lines with characteristic impedance optimization

A method to design a tapered transmission line with desired behavior in the reflection coefficient and with a smooth impedance transition from the feeding line to the load is presented. The method optimizes an objective function through the simulated annealing technique by perturbing the roots associated with the expression of the approximated reflection coefficient. The obtained results show the capabilities of the method in reducing the percentage of loss of the taper length, and also in improving the smoothness of the final characteristic impedance. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 24: 277–281, 2000.