Description
The objective is the definition and development of a fully electronically steerable transmit-receive antenna system in Ku-band for aircraft in-flight entertainment via satellite. Phase 1 of the project includes several system related subjects such as regulatory aspects, design constraints and trade-off between different architectures as well as a preliminary design for a demonstrator antenna. Phase 2 of the project consist of the design, build and test of a demonstrator connected array antenna.
A connected antenna array consisting of 16x16 dual polarized elements has been designed, built and tested, to demonstrate the connected array principle for obtaining a wideband (10.7-14.5 GHz) antenna array configuration with wide scanning capabilities and high polarization purity. Its intended application is for Ku-band Tx-uplink (10.7-12.75 GHz) and Rx-downlink (14.0-14.5 GHz) satellite communication systems having only a single electronically steerable antenna.
Test support equipment has been designed, built and applied, consisting of 512 channels controlling both phase and amplitude. As such it can drive each individual connected array element (16x16x2pol) in phase and amplitude and generate a resulting antenna beam that can be steered in any direction (up to at least 60 degrees) with any variable linear or circular polarization.
Future development steps shall focus on the manufacturability of the connected antenna array assembly and on the integration of available dedicated MMIC functionality for the phase-amplitude control electronics.
