Tx/Rx Multibeam Antenna - Ka Ingenious Space Solution (KISS)

Status

Completed
Status date

2014-01-15
Activity Code

5C.096

Objectives

Ka band market has recently significantly evolved : programs like Yahsat, Athena Fidus, Viasat, Wild Blue 3, Ka Sat … show a great step from slow and cautious introduction of Ka Band systems to full confidence in them. Requests for proposal (RFP) and programs have convinced Thales Alenia Space to continue and deepen its reflections at system point of view, initiated thanks to Domino II and Athena/Agora programs, by taking into account recent trends, propose innovations and demonstrate their feasibility.

Hence, this ARTES3-4 project aims to develop an antenna solution keeping the advantages of the “conventional” solutions (antenna RF efficiency, power handling, risks minimization, cost,…) and answering to market needs in Ka band at the same time.

The objective of the study is to conduct new developments to:

take benefit of narrow frequency band (125 to 500 MHz) to improve feed efficiency
take benefit of monopolarisation specification to improve feed efficiency versus cross-polarisation performance and save feed mass
to develop, manufacture and qualify in house a 2.05m reflector for small beams,
to design a new feed in reverse BSS Ka band
to analyse the potential solutions for multibeam Ka-band antenna testing with test techniques leading to reduce acquisition times.

Challenges

N/A

Benefits

To benefit from a very efficient antenna solution based on:

carbon reflector (performances stability)
very compact feed chains

Time saving for RF testing activities.

Features

The design and development activity is split in these parts:

20/30 GHz Subsystem antenna design for small beams with regular meshing and subsystem antenna design for multiple-beam coverage with non regular meshing.
20/30 GHz Horns design + Dual polarization and dual band high efficient complete feed (Engineering Model). The cross-section of the feed is a key element to provide efficient antenna solutions for small beam sizes in particular below 0.5° beam size. The new generation 4 ports RF chains CCN KISS (TAS Patent) is fitted to a distance between feed axis around 36 mm, considering an individual feed and its elementary parts. The improvement for an individual feed in terms of mass (75%), footprint (75%) for large mission is extremely significant
Qualification of a 2.05m full carbon reflector (EQM)
Ka-band Multiple-beam antenna RF testing using fast test techniques
New feed design for Ka BSS frequency plan (17/24 GHz)

Plan

The activities of the project are organised according to classical development phases. The main steps of the development are :