ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-10670
Open Date: 31/05/2021 12:15 CEST
Closing Date: 15/09/2021 13:00 CEST

The objective is to design, manufacture and test reduced-complexity Ka-band electronic scanning array antennas for high-value user terminals. Transmit and receive functionalities are to be designed, either on single or dual-aperture configuration. An additional objective is to reduce the grating lobes while maintaining a limited number of control points. Targeted Improvements:To make available electronic scanning array antennas for the consumer market (buses, trains, aero) characterised by a reduced number of controls (about 30%) while preserving required RF performance. Description:Electronic scanning array antennas are the ideal solution for achieving connectivity on-the-move due to their low-profile and agile beam pointing capabilities. However, these antennas are expensiveand complex as compared to antennas characterised by a mechanical or hybrid scanning. The number of radiating elements increase significantly, and their dimension decrease when a large field of view and a large frequency bandwidth are required. A priority in thisactivity is the identification and optimization of antenna architectures (including radiating elements, subarrays, beamforming network)suitable for large field of view and a large frequency bandwidth. Among the possible solutions to this problem, it has been shown that irregular partitioning of the array aperture obtained by using polyomino tiles allows to break the periodicity of the aperture amplitude/phase quantization distribution. This greatly reduces the occurrence of grating lobes over wider bandwidths and scan rangesas compared to a conventional antenna arrays. The activity will develop a reduced complexity Ka-band array antenna breadboard suitable for the consumer market (e.g. buses, trains, aero), possibly exploiting the properties of polyomino-based architectures. A trade-off aimed at combining transmit and receive functions on a single aperture versus a dual-aperture solution shall be performed. Procurement Policy: C(1) = Activity restricted to non-prime contractors (incl. SMEs). For additional information please go to EMITS news “Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes”.

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Contracts Officer: Claudia Ria Piesche
Initiating Service: TIA-TTG
IP Measure: C1
Prog. Reference: E/0534-01G – CC-AT 4.0.1
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CA+CH+CZ+DE+DK+EL+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 7-A-III-Array Antennas and Standalone Radiators
Products Keywords: 4-B-1-a-Structure & Thermal, Servo / Mechanics, Reflectors, feeds and diplexers, Antenna Control Units (ACUs), Drive Systems,…