ESA Open Invitation To Tender AO8470
Open Date: 17/11/2015
Closing Date: 06/01/2016

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 15.1EE.27
Prog. Ref.: TRP
Budget Ref.: E/0901-01 – TRP
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL+EE
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate of Technical & Quality Manag
Department: Electrical Engineering Department
Division: Electromagnetics and Space Environment D
Contract Officer: Elena Grashchenkova
Last Update Date: 17/11/2015
Update Reason: Tender issue

The slotted waveguide array antennas have been used extensively for EO instrument application since they exhibit interesting performances such as high antenna gain efficiency, low cross-polarization. Furthermore, both their planar and low profile allow to design large antenna aperture that can be stowed under the launcher fairing during launch and then deployed in-orbit. Today, the instruments such as SAR or radar scatterometer are more and more requiring a dual polarization operation. This dual polarization operation is in general achieved by interleaving slotted waveguides operating in H with ones operating in V using alternatively edge wall slots and broad wall slots. This antenna aperture architecture is known to exhibit unbalanced performances. In addition, the manufacturing of such an antenna is difficult, especially if metal plated CFRP material is used for low frequency operation (e.g. L-band, S-Band, or C-Band). There is therefore a strong interest to develop alternative antenna aperture architectures for dual polarization operation using slotted waveguide technology with balanced performances and ease-to-manufacturing. Recently, some antenna concepts using slotted waveguide technology, supporting the generation of the two polarisations, have been proposed . The aim of the activity will consist in investigating advanced concepts of slotted waveguide antennas enabling dual polarisation operation while remaining low lossand easy to manufacture. This investigation shall be performed for low frequency (L-Band) to high frequency (Ka-Band). This investigation shall include both resonant and travelling waveguides. This study shall also address the possible changes in the beamforming network to allow the scanning capability of the array. The activity will consist in : – issuing the main requirements of the EO instrument(s) and the antenna performance requirements, the environmentand interface requirements. – establishing the state of the art survey for relevant EO instrument antennas and dual polarized slotted waveguide array. – performing trade off analysis and selecting one baseline and one backup antenna solutions for the low loss dual polarized slotted waveguide antenna. – designing and analysing the selected dual polarized slotted waveguide antenna. – developing critical breadboarding to validate the design and analyses – proposing a roadmap and a development plan for the critical elements.

If you wish to access the documents related to the Invitation to Tender, you have to log in to the ESA Portal.