FLAT PANEL MASS-MARKET KA-BAND USER TERMINAL EXPRO PLUS

Objective: Develop a low-cost flat panel antenna in Ka-band for the SATCOM consumer marketDescription: Ka-band Flat panel Antennasdeveloped for SATCOM user terminals are typically based on very challenging performance requirements. This leads to high costs, effectively preventing such terminals to enter the consumer market. While significant advancements in satcom terminal technologiesparticularly flat panel antennas with single aperture for transmit and receivehave been made outside Europe, the availability of such technologies in Europe remains limited. The activity focuses on the development of a low-cost flat panel antenna in Ka-band for the SATCOM consumer market. The antenna shall be compliant with good enough performance requirements to provide reliable and sufficient connectivity to NGSO satellites. In particular, services such as (but not limited to) browsing, email, video calls and low data rate streaming (e.g. audio streaming) have to be guaranteed. The minimum data rate for these services shall be defined and used as a starting point to flow down the antenna requirements. Once the minimum requirements are derived, the activity shall focus on simplification and cost reduction with respect to currently available solutions. The investigation on cost reduction shall also include a projection of the consumer price assuming the terminal will be mass produced in the future. This activity encompasses the following tasks:- Consolidation of the requirements, - Trade-off analysis among several solutions and identification of the most promising antennaconfiguration, - Design and detailed analysis, - Manufacture and testing of a representative simplified antenna Breadboard.