Description
The objective of this activity is to design, develop, manufacture and test two compact planar Ka-band low power input multiplexers for broadband applications and volume production.
Targeted Improvements: 50% mass and footprint reduction of broadband, low power multiplexers due to efficient stacking accommodation.
Description:
Current multiplexer solutions for telecommunication multibeam systems are mainly based on two technologies with complex topologies:
- Traditional dual-mode circular waveguide cavity filters connected to a manifold and
- single or dual-mode dielectric loaded cavities connected in a channel dropping or manifold configuration.
Both solutions provide excellent RF performance, but are difficult to mass produce due to the large number of parts requiredand a complex assembly, integration, tuning and testing process. Different configurations of input multiplexers are employed in multibeam payloads, where the signals coming from the gateway Earth station pass through different frequency conversions before highpower amplification. In most of these payload configurations, a multiplexer or de-multiplexer is placed before and after the down/upconversion. This leads to a large number of broadband multiplexers that are required and therefore, mass and volume are critical designdrivers for the multiplexer channel filters. Circuit theories developed in recent years, together with innovative thermal compensation mechanisms, have demonstrated significant size and mass reduction potential without detriment to the RF performance (in-band flatness, group delay, rejection, etc.). This would allow the use of small size planar resonators at the expense of an increasedabsolute insertion loss, in the order of a few decibels. The increased insertion loss does not affect the system design and can easily be compensated by amplification stages within the RF chain.
In this activity compact, planar, broadband input multiplexers will be developed for each of the Ka-band frequency bands (20 GHz and 30 GHz) for multibeam payload applications. Engineering models offour-channel multiplexers will be manufactured and experimentally verified to fully validate the concepts.
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Tender Specifics