ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO8895
Open Date: 26/07/2017
Closing Date: 08/11/2017 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 17.1TT.01
Prog. Ref.: CC for Advanced Tech
Budget Ref.: E/0505-01C – CC for Advanced Tech
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+CA
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Products: Satellites & Probes / RF / Microwave Communication (Platform and Payloads) / Antennas – BB / Other
Techology Domains: RF Systems, Payloads and Technologies / Telecommunication Systems/Subsystems / Telecom Signal Processing
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Future Projects Division
Contract Officer: Piesche, Claudia Ria
Industrial Policy Measure: C2 – Activities in open competition, significant partecipat…
Last Update Date: 26/07/2017
Update Reason: Tender issue

Objective: The objective of the activity is to design and develop a low complexity receiver emulator supporting multi-user-detection techniques based on code division multiplexing. A system emulator shall be developed to demonstrate the achieved throughput improvements in networks supporting full frequency reuse.Targeted Improvements: To at least double the achievable beam peak throughput in a multi-beam broadband system compared to conventional four colour system with frequency flexibility.Description: The throughputof multi-beam broadband systems has grown over the years by increasing their capacity through a larger number of beams. However, payload accommodation constraints pose a practical limit to the maximum number of beams that can be embarked aboard a satellite. Moreover, high capacity systems have learned that their throughput (i.e. the part of their capacity that is actually used and generates revenue) does not grow linearly with their maximum raw capacity capability. The reason is the geographical mismatch between the offered capacity and the traffic demand which makes some beams to be overloaded (i.e. the demand exceeds the available capacity) and others to be underloaded.To solve this issue multi-beam broadband systems have started embarking flexible payloads that allow them to transfer satellite resources from the underloaded beams to the overloadedones by allocating the on-board resources appropriately.Frequencies and power allocated to under-loaded beams may be re-used in neighbouring overloaded beams at the expense of interfering with each other. A family of advanced digitalsignal processing techniques under the name of multi-user-detection (MUD) can effectivelyexploit such interference to increase the local throughput by simultaneously demodulating 2-3neighbouring beams sharing the same frequency in a single terminal.Multi-user-detection can be exploited in combination with existing payloads and does not require anyterminal reporting to the gateway. One of its main drawbacks was the demodulatorcomplexity and robustness. However, a number of investigations have been recently performed on the feasibility of multi-user-detection based on Code Division Multiplexing (CDM). Theresults are very promising showing that the beam throughput can be at least doubled when compared to a conventional 4 colours multi-beam system with frequency flexibility.The present activity aims in a first stage to design and develop low-complexity yet robust CDMmulti-user-detection receiver emulator (software or hybrid hardware/software-based)capable of simultaneously acquire and demodulate carriers from multiple co-channel beams when full frequency reuse is exploited. In a second stage the activity shall design and develop asystem emulator that includes such receiver to demonstrate the achieved throughput improvements in realistic multi-beam satellite system scenarios. The system emulator shall include: (1)a Gateway multi-beam physical layer emulator able to generate arbitrary beam traffic load conditions; (2) a satellite forward link multi-beam emulator covering all relevant linkimpairments; (3) a decentralized CDM MUD terminal demodulator implementing all channel estimation and detection functionalities with programmable location in the beam coverage;(4) ancillary test-bed configuration control and performance monitoring elements. The emulator shall supportfull frequency re-use. The emulator, although mainly addressing physicallayer aspects, shall also be able to show the capability to shift throughput from one beam to the other in a seamless way depending on the traffic distribution scenarios. Furthermore, theemulator shall also include the physical layer modulation and coding configuration adaptability to the current terminal location.Procurement Policy: C(2) = A relevant participation (in terms of quality and quantity) of non-primes (incl. SMEs) is required. For additional information please go to EMITS news “Industrial Policy measurres for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes”.

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