Objectives

The objective of these projected 24 months activities is to industrialize, manufacture and qualify the compact, lightweight, low-cost and Low Noise Master Oscillators (LNMO), which has been developed in the frame of an ARTES 5.1 project, contract N°4200023116, by testing 16 Engineering Qualification Models (EQM) at 5MHz, 10MHz, 20MHz and 40MHz. To cover the whole frequency range only one crystal holder has been used (HC37), instead of 3 initially planned (HC40, HC37 and HC35). 
These equipments shall be free of ITAR license control for use in worldwide space programs.

Challenges

The key issues addressed in LNMO project are:

• Reach phase noise requirements from 1Hz to 100kHz over the whole frequency range (5MHz to 40MHz)

• Find solutions using ITAR free parts. 

• Validate several crystal suppliers with at least one European.

• Cost reduction to gain market share

System Architecture

LNMO current design

Size: 50x50x30mm

Weight: 100 – 110 grams (depends on pin configuration)

In the gray area of the block diagram are all the thermal sensitive functions which shall be implanted on the heated board.

Thermo-mechanical structure

The oven will be done by:

• a small oven used to heat and fix the crystal resonator

• a ground plane used to heat the PCB and the sensitive parts

• machining a few slots on the PCB for thermal insulation

Plan

 The plan is divided in two phases:

Phase 1: Requirements review and design 

• Task 1: Requirements, Technology and Design Modifications Review. Validation of LLI parts list.

PDR

• Task 2: Detailed LNMO current design improvement:

  • 5 MHz and 20MHz (SC overtone 3), 40MHz (SC overtone 5) crystals specifications in HC37 holder

  • Adding option of a second supply voltage.

    • Vs for signal generation supply

    • Vp for oven supply

• Task 3: BBM manufacturing at 20MHz and 40MHz

• Task 4: LLI purchasing and Crystals pre-irradiation

• Task 5: Update MATV plan including crystal pre-irradiation process

• Task 6: Establishment of the preliminary qualification test plan

CDR

Phase 2: Qualification

• Phase 2 A: EQM Manufacture, Assembly, Tuning

  • Task 7: EQM manufacturing

  • Task 8: Finalization and validation of qualification test plan and test procedures

TRR

• Phase 2 B: Qualification tests 

  • Task 9: Environmental tests (vibration, thermal and mechanical shocks)

  • Task 10: Irradiation tests 

  • Task 11: Thermal vacuum cycle

  • Task 12: EMC tests

  • Task 13: life test

  • Task 14: Overall Assessment and Recommendations

FR

Current Status

Project completed.

Objectives

The objective of ESA NGSO-Sense projects is to develop a ground terminal prototype, as well as the measurement procedure, for detecting and identifying interference; and measuring Radio Frequency (RF) characteristics from a NGSO satellite network.

Challenges

A number of private ventures envision a global network comprising a large number of NGSO satellites with the aim of providing ubiquitous broadband connectivity. The number of satellites being launched into space is dramatically increasing, which has raised some serious concerns among GSO satellite operators because such NGSO constellations will operate at the same frequencies that are currently used by GSO satellites (Ka and Ku bands).

International regulators have the difficult task to establish a fair and transparent competitive framework for all satellite broadband players while prioritising the socioeconomic growth. On the other hand, we have the satellite operators. First, the GSO operators, which see a threat in these NewSpace constellation due to the increase amount of interference that they will cause. Second, the NGSO operators, which need to understand when and for how much they may be inflicting the radio regulations and if they are being interfered by other NGSO systems.

System Architecture

See above.

Plan

NGSO-Sense project kicked-off in December 2022 and it will run for 2 years. The project is divided into 6 technical work-packages (WP):

WP1: SOTA review and Technical Specifications

WP2: Technical Baseline

WP3: Detailed Design

WP4: Implementation and Verification Plan

WP5: Development and Evaluation

WP6: Technology Assessment and Development Plan

Current Status

The project is on-going.

Related Links

• Web of University of Luxembourg

Companies

University of Luxembourg

https://wwwen.uni.lu/

Luxembourg

Objectives

The aim of the project is the implementation of a fully software defined DVB-S2X demodulator, running on general-purpose hardware, which could replace a dedicated hardware demodulator in some selected use cases. The technical challenges of parallel processing for demodulation and decoding algorithms in software will be elaborated. Based on existing implementations and partially new designs, the dedicated exploitation of hardware-specific elements is expected to achieve bandwidths of 36 MHz and beyond, matching the application-specific requirements.

Challenges

There are two main technical challenges connected to the design of a real-time software demodulator: 

• In the first place, several algorithms traditionally oriented to hardware implementations have to be adapted to a software paradigm. This is particularly challenging due to the variable frame size used in the DVB-S2X physical layer. 

• On a more implementation-oriented basis, the features offered by the hardware platform (e.g., SIMD instruction set extensions) shall be intensively exploited.

System Architecture

The architecture of the SWDM is implicitly dictated by the data types and rates which shall be processed at each step.
A combination of pipelining and parallelism is employed to leverage the constraints of the specific algorithmic blocks. This is facilitated by the underlying software platform, which is a modular single-process multi-threaded system, where the individual threads can have an affinity to a specific processor core as per the needs of the software.

A highly simplified overview of the receiver architecture is shown below.

Plan

The project followed a familiar waterfall project process:

• System Requirements Review, Q1 2022: Definition of applications and requirements, State-of-the-Art analysis, Creation of technical specification & Outline verification plan

• Preliminary Design Review, Q3 2022: Select a Technical baseline selection & establish a Preliminary Design 

• Critical Design Review, Q1 2023: Establish a Detailed Design, Integration Plan and Test Plan

• Test Readiness Review, Q2 2024: Implementation of the deliverable Items and first test runs.

• Final Acceptance Review, Q4 2024: Final Review and perform critical assessment of potential of developed items for commercial exploitation

Current Status

The activity has achieved the Final Acceptance Review (FAR).

The public final presentation is scheduled for the ARTES Final Presentation Days 2025.

Related Links

• Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) Consortium
• WORK Microwave’s Virtual Ground Station solutions – overview page
• V-Series Software Modem – product page

Companies

WORK Microwave GmbH

https://www.work-microwave.com

Germany

Objectives

As of today, performances of antenna systems are evaluated analysing both measured and modelled data. If an anomaly occurs, an iterative process is made to determine the root cause. The goal of this project is to develop and validate AIDA (Artificial-Intelligence-Assisted Performance and Anomaly Detection and Diagnostic), a machine-learning-based software for the detection of RF anomalies and the identification of the associated root causes.

AIDA intends to contribute to the antenna experts analysis and to reduce the diagnosis time by implementing the following software capabilities:

• Early identification of antenna system anomalies, using an AI approach to classify patterns data, implementing generalization strategies in order to foster re-use of a trained model for different antennas under test (AUTs).

• Accurate anomaly quantification, thanks to a wide labelled database which is used for this purpose.

• Verification of the anomaly classification and quantification output, comparing the measured patterns with the EM model data updated with the AIDA diagnostic output.

Challenges

The key challenges are the following:

• Exploit artificial intelligence techniques (e.g. supervised machine learning) for diagnosing RF anomalies

• Implement generalization techniques to foster re-use of the trained AI model for antennas having different dimensions or operating at different frequency bands with respect to the dataset used for the training

• Use of real or simulated data with known output labels for training the AI model

• Reduce the diagnosis time by a factor of 10/100 (i.e. from two weeks up to one day or less).

• Develop a software framework for testing the AI model, and for execute comparison analyses between data.

System Architecture

AIDA is characterised by a typical three tier architecture composed by:

• The AIDA database, which collects all the antennas patterns uploaded into the system (training and test data);

• The AIDA Diagnostic SW, which executes the anomaly classification and quantification, and it contains the function usable for the computation of the reconstruction error; the AIDA Diagnostic SW functionalities can be accessed both from the command terminal and from the developed AIDA Front-end SW.

• The AIDA Front-end SW, which is a web-based application from which all the features of the AIDA Diagnostic SW can be reached. Moreover, this software allows the user to investigate data from the database, plotting patterns and investigating diagnostic results.

The AIDA Training SW is an external module, which is responsible for the training of an AI algorithm, either imposing the training hyper-parameters, or using an hyper-parameter optimization; in the current version implemented, the AIDA Training SW functionalities can be accessed from the command terminal.

Plan

The project comprises the following working packages:

• WP100: identify state-of-the-art AI methods suitable for the diagnostic system to be developed, defining a technical specification of the proposed solution, and demonstrating its feasibility.
• WP200: prepare a preliminary training dataset for the selection of the candidate AI methodologies, and operate the trade-off analysis for the selection of the algorithm to be implemented.
• WP300: prepare the final training dataset to be used for the training of the selected AI algorithm, implement the diagnostic strategy and implement the framework of the front-end software.
• WP400: demonstrate the functionalities of the diagnostic solution, operating a test campaign.
• WP500: summarise the results achieved during the project, identifying future developments points, and pointing out the most important lessons learnt. 

Current Status

The AIDA diagnostic solution has been tested with data of reflector and phased array antennas. Performances have been proved satisfying If the input is composed of antennas having the same operative conditions as the training dataset. If the operative conditions differ from the training dataset, the classification accuracy depends from the anomaly class considered. Possible improvement points have been addressed as particularly important to attain performance levels suitable for the market needs and future RF technologies.

Companies

S.A.T.E. S.r.l.

http://www.sate-italy.com/

Italy

Thales Alenia Space Italia

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space-italy

Italy

University of Venice (UNIVE)

https://www.unive.it/

Italy

Objectives

The overall objective of the activity was the design of a Q/V-band gateway antenna that can be scaled in the range 7 to 13 meters for future feeder link gateways and which uses the same feed in all antenna configurations. The mechanical, electrical and RF designs should reach at least PDR level and the designed antenna should offer a high Q/V-band EIRP on the ground and a high efficiency in reception.

To optimally cover the aforementioned range of diameters, on the one hand HITEC´s existing high-performance 6.8m Ka-band design was upgraded and qualified for Q/V-band operation by incorporating a Q/V-band RF system and on the other hand the scalability has been demonstrated by the design of a new 11m Q/V-band antenna reusing the same RF system.

Challenges

The key challenges in this project were three-fold:

• Reduction of the ohmic losses in interconnections between feed and amplifiers, which often scale with antenna size.
• Optimization of the reflector shape and main reflector surface accuracy as well as tracking accuracy which play a particularly important role at such high frequencies.
• Identification of a complete set of suitable COTS RF components to reduce risks on programmatic scheduling.

System Architecture

The Q/V-band gateway antennas designed for this activity contain the following main subsystems, with the components they comprise:

• Radio-frequency (RF) subsystem
• Motion control subsystem
• HITEC local monitoring & control (M&C) subsystem
• Electrical subsystem
• Mechanical subsystem

The following figure illustrates the product breakdown structure including major components.

Plan

The project plan for the activity foresaw the following main tasks:

• Task 1: Component market study & refinement of the antenna specifications 
• Task 2: Trade-off analysis and update of the performance budgets
• Task 3: Design of a 6.8m Q/V-band limited motion antenna
• Task 4: Design of an 11m Q/V-band limited motion antenna

Milestones:

• KOM in April 2018
• Trade-Off Analysis Review (TAR) in December 2019 (completion of tasks 1 and 2)
• Mid Term Review (MTR) in May 2020 (completion of task 3)
• Final Review (FR) and Final Presentation (FP) in October 2021 (completion of task 4 and the project)

Current Status

The project has been successfully completed. A reference model for the intended application has been established in terms of frequency plan and redundancy. Critical trade-offs have been carried out and optimized solutions for Q/V-band have been derived. HITEC Luxembourg´s existing 6.8m Ka-band antenna design has been adapted and qualified for Q/V-band, resulting in a design that is high-TRL and ready for commercialization. A new 11m antenna design has been developed specifically for Q/V-band applications up to PDR-level maturity.

Related Links

• HITEC Space & Satellite Systems
• HITEC Luxembourg S.A.

Companies

HITEC Luxembourg S.A.

http://www.hitec.lu/

Luxembourg