DIELECTRIC HIGH POWER OUTPUT DE-MULTIPLEXER AT KU/KA-BAND (ARTES AT 5C.361)
23, February 2018

ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO9250
Open Date: 22/02/2018
Closing Date: 06/09/2018 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 18.1TT.13
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: > 500 KEURO
Products: Satellites & Probes / RF / Microwave Communication (Platform and Payloads) / “Communication – BB (Antennas excluded)” / Other
Techology Domains: RF Systems, Payloads and Technologies / RF Technologies and Equipment / RF Devices
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Technologies and Products Division
Contract Officer: Rinaudo, Nicole
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 22/02/2018
Update Reason: Tender issue

Objective:The objective of this activity is to develop a compact dielectric high power output de-multiplexer for Ka-band multibeamsystems and to evaluate the concept by means of Ku-band and Ka-band engineering models.Targeted Improvements:30% footprint reduction with respect to state of the art solutions.Description:In current multi-beam (Ka/Ku-band) systems a single Travelling Wave Tube Amplifier (TWTA) is shared between two or more beams in order to reduce the number of high power amplifiers embarked on the satellite. An Output De-Multiplexer (ODEMUX) is employed after the TWTA to separate the signals destined for each beam. For multibeam systems a high number of identical ODEMUX are required due to the nature of the frequency re-use scheme. This imposes very stringent requirements on the ODEMUX in terms of mass and footprint.Dielectric-loaded cavity filters offer significant size, mass and footprint reductions of at least 30%.Today this class of filters is being extensively used for Input Multiplexer (IMUX) channels in all bandsand for high power Output Multiplexer (OMUX) channels in C-band. In Ku-band technical solutions for dielectric OMUX are limited to moderate power levels not more than 80 – 100 W per channel due to the narrow bandwidth.In comparison to today’s OMUX, ODEMUX have amuch wider bandwidth requirement of 250 MHz or more and hence the use of dielectric-loaded cavities in Ku- and Ka-band becomes feasible also for higher RF power levels.In this activity, 250 W-class, Ku-band and Ka-band two-channel output demultiplexers with 250 MHz channel bandwidth and with 30 per cent footprint reduction in comparison to the state of the art shall be designed, manufacturedand tested experimentally.

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