Description
Objective: The objective is to develop and test a Ku or Ka band transparent phased array antenna to provide broadband connectivity on board cars. Targeted Improvements: Develop a new class of phased array antennas for cars able to guarantee a seamless broadband connectivity with LEO satellites. Description: There is today a significant interest to provide broadband connectivity to cars. This request is associated to the need to guarantee emergency services (such as police, firefighters, paramedics), environmental protections, healthcare (telemedicine), urban services, entertainment and autonomous driving. Next generation cars will be designed with large panoramic, transparent roofs. Therefore, broadband connectivity can be only enabled by developing large transparent antennas in Ka-band integrated in the car glasses (windows, panoramic roof, windshield, etc...). Connections with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, as compared with connection with GEO satellites, offer a significant advantage in terms of link budget but poses additional challenges in terms of antenna pointing Objective:The objective of the activity is to design, build and test reconfigurable Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) filters, and demonstrate their benefits on a C-Band antenna array demonstrator for 5G.Targeted Improvements:Enabling a variety of terrestrial/satcom 5G use-cases currently not feasible at C-Band.Description:Phased array antennas provide an efficient way to steer and direct the radiated RF energy in terrestrial 5G applications such as base stations and fixed wireless access (FWA) terminals. However, the performance and benefits of the phased array can be limited by trade-offs within the constituent RF chains, particularly when considering interference from terrestrial and satellite networks co-existing at C-Band. The ability to reconfigure the bandwidth of a RF chain to control the effects of emissions and interference is therefore a desirable capability in future mid-band 5G services. As an example of the advantages of the proposed concept, a wideband and dynamically programmable array operating over C-Band (e.g., 3.3 to 7.0 GHz), could achieve a combination of passband system noise figure and rejection of out-of-band Objective:The objective of this activity is to design, develop and test a user terminal integrating DVB and 3GPP functions to enable seamless utilisation of satellite DVB-based systems, satellite 3GPP based systems and terrestrial 3GPP based systems in a single terminal.Targeted Improvements:Foster the integration of conventional satellite interfaces with 3GPP satellite and terrestrial systems.Description:The 5th generation of wireless broadband networks (5G) promised a new paradigm in communications, offering higher transmission rates, higher reliability, very low latency, and connectivity to remote areas. When the 3GPP included NTN(Non-Terrestrial Network) features in release 17 of its specification, satellite officially entered the 5G world. As of today, mostof satellite broadband systems use the DVB-Sx standard, however as satellite players are starting to experiment with 5G NTN implementations, it is expected that future satellite systems will adhere to this air interface. It is anticipated that both interfaces will co-exist for a long period (considering the life cycle of satellite systems), opening the door to hybrid user terminals that couldequally exploit both interfaces. Furthermore, as 5G keeps deploying in the terrestrial infrastructure, such hybrid terminals might combine satellite and terrestrial connectivity as well. This could introduce a variety of advantages in terms of availability (i.e.,more systems available for diversity), connectivity resilience (hot link redundancy) and security (i.e. simultaneous data transmission through multiple paths, reducing the risk of data lost and interception).Procurement Policy: C(2) = A relevant participation (in terms of quality and quantity) of non-primes (incl. SMEs) is required. For additional information please go to:http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Business_with_ESA/Small_and_Medium_Sized_En…