Tenders Are Invited For Large Modular Antenna With Reduced Grating Lobes (Artes At 5B.247)

Tenders are invited for Large Modular Antenna with Reduced Grating Lobes (Artes at 5b.247) The objective of the activity is to develop a large antenna composed of modules or subarrays physically separated by multiple wavelengths in L-/S-Band, Ku- or Ka-band. This includes the development of wideband antenna beamforming and signal processing techniques to control the grating lobes and the necessary interconnectivity architecture to achieve the required phase and time synchronisation. Targeted Improvements: Enabling wideband beamforming for modular large apertures composed of multiple-wavelength-separated arrays.Description: Large antenna apertures up to tens of meters in diameter could enable many types of services in all orbits, including broadband, Internet of Things, and direct-to-device. However, todays launchers and platform choices often limit the size of the antenna to be deployed. Beamforming for apertures comprising multiple subarrays (modules, tiles) separated by a large electrical distance is possible, at the cost of grating lobes that degrade the performance of the antenna and extra complexity due to the required synchronisation. However, advanced beamforming techniques, such as multi-level beamforming as well as signal processing techniques, have the potential to reduce the interference introduced by grating lobes. This activity will study, develop, and implement wide band beamforming and signal processing techniques to mitigate the effect of the grating lobes and to improve the antenna performance in terms of Carrier-to-Interference ratio (C/I) in L-/S-band, and in Ku- or Ka-band. The developed concepts will be implemented into anantenna breadboard and tested. The activity will be implemented in a phased approach where: Phase 1 will study array synthesis techniques to reduce the grating lobes, and the maximum electrical distance between adjacent subarrays to ensure that the resulting aggregate C/I will be above the threshold required for applications in L-/S-band, and in Ku- or Ka-band. Antenna performance in terms of directivity, grating lobes, sidelobe level, C/I, and Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) will be evaluated against distance between adjacent arrays. An interconnectivity architecture and critical technologies enabling the antenna beamforming, including interconnectivity and synchronisation, will be investigated and tested by a limited-scale derisking breadboard. Signal processing solutions that do not require a main processor will be studied where the processing is implemented in each module and then combined. Phase 1 output shall comprise a beamforming and signal processing concept supported by analysis and derisking test results as well as adefinition of an antenna baseline. The developed concepts shall be further developed in Phase 2 and implemented into an antenna testbed in L-/S-Band, Ku- or Ka-band (to be confirmed in Phase 1) capable to fully evaluate the performance and grating lobe suppression of the modular antenna aperture. The testbed will consist of 5-7 tiles (to be confirmed in Phase 1), each tile representing aco-located array antenna of limited size with several tiles implementing the beamforming network and interconnectivity. The antenna tile beamforming patterns and performance shall be tested as well as the combined beamforming performance of all tiles to evaluate the grating lobe suppression efficiency Tender Link : https://esastar-publication-ext.sso.esa.int/ESATenderActions/filter/open

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