The Traveling-Wave Tube in the History of Telecommunication

TL;DR

This paper reviews the historical development and significance of the traveling-wave tube in wireless communications and space applications, highlighting its invention, evolution, and ongoing relevance in satellite data transmission.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical overview of the traveling-wave tube, connecting its technological evolution to its impact on global TV broadcasting and space exploration.

Findings

The traveling-wave tube played a key role in expanding TV broadcasting via microwave radio-relays and satellites.

It has been integral to space applications from early structures in 1889 to modern projects.

The device remains widely used in current satellite communication systems.

Abstract

The traveling-wave tube is a critical subsystem for satellite data transmission. Its role in the history of wireless communications and in the space conquest is significant, but largely ignored, even though the device remains widely used nowadays. This paper present, albeit non-exhaustively, circumstances and contexts that led to its invention, and its part in the worldwide (in particular in Europe) expansion of TV broadcasting via microwave radio-relays and satellites. We also discuss its actual contribution to space applications and its conception. The originality of this paper comes from the wide period covered (from first slow-wave structures in 1889 to present space projects) and from connection points made between this device and commercial exploitations. The appendix deals with an intuitive pedagogical description of the wave-particle interaction.