Esa-DTH

Status

Completed
Status date

2021-11-22
Activity Code

7B.038

Objectives

The objective of the activity is to design, develop and test Ku-band TV reception wall mounted antennas that are either customisable or self-aligning.
The targeted improvement is an enabling technology to allow volume production of affordable self-aligned or customised flat-mounted aesthetically appealing antennas both with minimal user installation effort.

Challenges

This activity aims at using manufacturing processes compatible with volume production of flat-mounted Ku-band TV reception antennas that reduce user installation effort thereby improving customer acceptance.

Benefits

Many private users could be reluctant or are not allowed to install parabolic antennas due to installation complexity and/or aesthetic reasons.

This market can be reached by having a thin flat antenna design that allows the terminal to be easily installed and aligned and also be flat mounted in a good-looking manner.

Features

Current commercial solutions receive the signal along the axis perpendicular to the plane of the antenna.

The solution addressed in this project, instead, provides a flat antenna with high performance and a (generally) oblique pointing w.r.t. to the antenna plane.

System Architecture

The solution is formed by a planar phased array with dual-linear polarization. And a platelet (multi-layer) waveguide configuration for the
pre-aligned custom beam forming network (BFN).

Plan

The project is organized as follows:

Preliminary Design Review (PDR) T0+6m
Critical Design Review (CDR) T0+12m
Test Readiness Review (TRR) T0+15m
Final Review (FR) T0+18m

Current status

At present, an antenna in line with the design specifications has been realized and measured in the laboratory to validate the operating principle (TRL4). The results are in line with the simulations. The consortium is discussing with the Agency possible further developments to reach an higher TRL (TRL6).