3D Smith Chart

 

3D Smith Chart

Is a new 3d electronics& telecom design tool with applications mainly in high frequency engineering

Note: A 3D Smith chart free demo is now available  on the site: Please check it!

The free 3D Smith chart Java demo generalizes the Smith chart on the surface of unit sphere

It can be seen as a magical 3d chart that includes both the entire reflection coefficient and impedance planes,                                                                                          

one may switch to the other through a rotation

It is desired to be  a design tool for both passive and active circuits                                                                                                                                                

Amplifiers, Oscillators, Active filters, lossy matchings designs are eased.

An important visual feature is the capability to plot stability circles in a compact manner                                                                                                                               

All possible situations for stability circles are included on the 3D Smith chart                 

an impossible thing on an extended 2D Smith chart.  Some examples are plotted below

The main mathematical "trick" of the 3D Smith chart  was used by Escher in his arts and by Mandelbrot in the fractal theory too                                                                                                                                                                                       

Tool: It uses just circles on the surface of the unit sphere

The north hemisphere is only for passive circuits.The south hemisphere is for active circuits

Watch the demo videos:

 

or try the
 

 

3D Smith Chart Demo

 

 

The West of Greenwich meridian is made of capacitive circuits. The East of Greenwich is made of inductive circuits                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
The perfect matching point is the north pole of the sphere
The infinite mismatch is in the south pole of the sphere
One has to get to the north pole in order to obtain the matching
Moving along a transmission line is represented by the movement on a latitude circle- for the lossless case
Movie presents a 3D Smith chart demo tool
Stability circles are very easy to be seen in a compact manner on the 3D Smith chart.
 
 

In the last years several attempts were done to develop a 3D Smith chart suitable for both active and passive design. The 3D Smith chart presented here is based on the June 2011 MWCL journal article "A 3D Smith chart based on the Riemann sphere for active and passive microwave circuits" The article uses for the first time inversive geometry on the Riemann sphere (used sometimes without knowledge in arts too) and unifies the active circuits and passive circuits design generalizing the Smith chart. Latitude and longitudes become the important 3D Smith chart tool options in designing-while the theory behind is from pure mathematics-South pole = mapping of infinity. Important details can be found in the IEEE June MWCL article.

 
See the article: "A 3D Smith Chart based on a Riemann Sphere for Active and Passive Microwave Circuits"
 
 
 The 3D Smith chart  tool  was presented in premiere at European Microwave Week, special event " Microwave fundamentals"  on 13 October 2011 - Manchester

( tks to prof T.J. Brazil, University College Dublin, Ireland and to Stepan Lucyszyn- EUMC chairman)
 
 
The program can deal with complex ports and can also plot stability circles-here is a simple lossy line- one can read the impedance and reflection coefficients on the same chart
 
 
 
Stability circles on the 3D Smith chart
 
 
 
Complex mathchings for lossy lines
 
One of the basic ideas of the extension:
 
 
Andrei - in the RHP of the impedance plane
 
 
 
 
Andrei- under the Smith chart mapping
 
The Smith chart is placed in the equatorial plane, thus Andrei is "sent" in the North hemisphere- since he was in the RHP of the impedance plane thus inside of the classical Smith chart
 
 
A lossy line on the 3D Smith chart in the reflection coefficient's plane
 
 
A lossy line in the impedance plane ( one rotates the sphere and gets the entire impedance plane) the orange circles are constant abs(z) circles
 
The program can plot also stability circles and do lossy matchings in different approaches
 
 
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