Programme Element: ARTES 5.1
Reference nr.: 13.1TT.31
Planned Tender Issue: quarter 4, 2013
(*) Priority 2
The objective of this activity is to investigate and trade-off designs of multi-mission, multi-frequency antenna systems for telecoms. This meets a genuine need identified by the operators who are required to embark an increasing number of missions per satellite. This requires combining missions on the same antenna aperture. The activity shall include the manufacture and test of an EM feed system.
Targeted Improvements: An increase in the number of telecoms missions that can be accommodated per satellite.
Description:
For satellite operators to take advantage of emerging markets for telecommunications systems, whilst also serving existing markets, it is necessary to embark several large deployable antennas per satellite. For example, Eutelsat W3B, which serves Europe and Africa, and Eutelsat W7, which serves Europe, Africa and Eurasia, both have up to 4 deployed Ku-band reflectors, whilst the Earth decks are heavily populated by the Ka-band antennas. Consequently, the future expansion of missions/services on the same satellite is limited by antenna accommodation issues.
Existing technologies that are able to combine missions include frequency (Frequency Selective Surface -FSS) or polarization (Polarisation selective Surface - PSS) filtering, as used in other domains such as millimetre wave quasi-optic boxes, or Earth station beam-waveguide multi-frequency reflectors. These may be considered for space telecommunication antennas. Also, recently reported techniques based on dual frequency (Ku/Ka-band) optimisation by phase variation compensation to enable the dual frequency use of shaped reflectors shall also be investigated. These antenna configurations can be fed by multi-frequency, multi polarisation feeds, possibly in a focal array. Direct Radiating Array (DRA) designs can also be considered for this application. Suitable missions shall be identified and defined with the cooperation of satellite operators. New and novel feed technologies shall be implemented at Engineering Model (EM) level and antenna secondary pattern performance verified by simulation.
(*) Priority 2 activities will only be initiated on the explicit request of at least one delegation.
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