Programme Element: ARTES 5.1
Reference nr.: 13.1TT.34
Planned Tender Issue: quarter 3, 2013
Objective: To design, manufacture and test two Ku-Band harmonic filter breadboard (BB) units showing multipactor suppression using dielectric filling techniques.
Targeted Improvements:
- 100% peak power handling increase at harmonic filter level.
- 30% footprint reduction at output multiplexer (OMUX) assembly level.
Description:
Recent advancements in Ku-Band satellite payloads and equipment drive the power level requirements to several hundreds of Watts whilst increasing the number of operating transponders. In the output multiplexer (OMUX) arena, channel filters for 250 to 500 Watt power handling are currently under development. For a typical eight-channel OMUX, the output section would be subjected to power levels of up to 32 kW peak. The dilemma between the use of a single harmonic filter at the OMUX output and a channelized harmonic filter approach (i.e. one filter at the input of each OMUX channel) is therefore a recurring trade-off in many telecommunication payload designs. Modern Ku-band applications show no solid design baseline with adequate peak-power handling (multipactor) for a single harmonic filter under multicarrier operation. It would be beneficial to adopt a single multipactor-free design, covering a majority of applications, without penalties of higher loss or increased mass and size. On the one hand, the use of dielectric filling techniques for multipactor suppression has been successfully demonstrated in the past at C-Band. On the other hand, significant advancements in dielectric materials technology have been achieved in the recent years.
In the proposed activity, novel harmonic filter concepts based on dielectric filling techniques shall be developed.
The first step of the proposed activity shall be a review of the current state of the art, including a detailed evaluation of dielectric material technology and harmonic filter multipactor design limits for Ku-Band applications. In a second step, two different design concepts based on the application of dielectric filling techniques shall be studied and implemented on two Ku-Band harmonic filter breadboards. The next steps shall be the breadboard manufacturing, assembly and multipactor testing up to the breakdown or maximum available power. The activity shall include an assessment of the proposed technology for Ka-band high-power applications.
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