Description
The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test an engineering model of a beam forming network chip to support direct radiating array antennas in W-band for future receive chain feeder links in ultra-high throughput satellite telecommunication payloads.Targeted Improvements: Enabling technology for reconfigurable antennas in W-band for ultra-high-throughput satellite feederlinks (at least 1 Tbit/s throughput) not existing today. Description: Satellite telecommunication systems have experienced increased traffic in Ku- and Ka- frequency bands. Consequently, higher frequency bands need to be exploited to accommodate an increased capacity requirement for these systems. W-band offers enough available spectrum to accommodate Terabit-per-second demand in ultra-high-throughput satellite (UHTS) telecommunication systems. A constraint has been reached on the gateway side of multi-beam systems, as currently each gateway is only able to process approximately 3.5 GHz of bandwidth. In order to keep up with the increasing user demand, the bandwidth of the gateway networks (and consequently the feeder links) needs to be increased. The use of multi-beam, flexible, electronically steerable antennas in the user link has enabled an increased user-link throughput, and this solution can be applied to the feeder links too.A critical block on these antennas is the beamforming chip that delays the signal to form the desired beams.Phase shifters or switchable delay lines directly connected to each antenna element steer the beam, but they do not provide a true-time delay function. Without true-time delay, the beam will spread (squint) over the frequency band with different harmonic components of the signal being radiated in different angular directions. Most of the commercial beamforming integrated circuit solutions using true-time delay operate in broadband but at lower frequencies. This activity is focused on the design and implementation of a wideband active beamforming chip operating in W-band. The beam steering is based on a true-time delay instead of a phase shift between antenna array elements. The performance of this solution shall be demonstrated through the design, manufacturing and testing of a multi-channel, programmable, compact, wideband beamforming integrated circuit. Demonstration of its functions and performance at antenna level shall be carried out in a reduced-scale antenna array. Footnote: On Delegation Request activities will only be initiated onthe explicit request of at least one National Delegation.