LOW PROFILE ACTIVE SCANNING ANTENNA ARRAY DEMONSTRATOR (ARTES AT 7C.040) RE-ISSUE OF ITT 1-8493

Description

The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test an antenna breadboard representative of a low profile, actively scanning transmit-receive Satellite User Terminal full size antenna.

Targeted Improvements: The activity targets the demonstration of new ground segment antenna concept utilizing novel, low cost steering technology with low power consumption.

Description: There is a commercial strong interest in developing reconfigurable antenna completely electronic with limited thickness, large field of view and limited overall power consumption. This is difficult and expensive to develop with current conventional technologies.

In the last years several technologies have been showing promising results to improve on this. Using liquid crystal technology as reconfigurable phase shifters is one possible, promising example. Polarisers and reflect-array antennas based on this technology have been successfully demonstrated at frequency around 100 GHz in the framework of a recent ESA TRP activity. Other promising activities have been running in Europe where liquid crystals as variable phase shifters have been demonstrated at around 30 GHz. Today new mixtures with significantly reduced insertion losses are under optimization and these materials start being competitive with other more conventional technologies (like pin or varactor diodes).

The activity will include the following tasks: Identification of the most promising technology and concepts; Design of innovative Tx/Rx antenna solutions; Manufacturing and testing of a limited breadboard.

Procurement Policy: C(1) = Activity restricted to non-prime contractors (incl. SMEs). For additional information pleasego to EMITS news "Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and R&D entities in ESA programmes".

Tender Specifics