ELECTRO-PHOTONIC TRANSCEIVER BREADBOARDING FOR GROUND STATIONS APPLICATIONS -T712-601GS – RE-ISSUE
16, April 2020

ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10303
Open Date: 16/04/2020
Closing Date: 03/06/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 20.112.08
Prog. Ref.: Technology Developme
Budget Ref.: E/0901-01 – Technology Developme
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL+EE+HU
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Products: Ground Segment / Ground Station / RF equipment / Transmitter and Receiver assemblies, Frequency converters, …
Technology Domains: Optoelectronics / Photonics / RF Photonics
Establishment: ESOC
Directorate: Directorate of Operations
Department: Ground Systems Eng. & Innovation Dept.
Division: Ground Station Engineering Division
Contract Officer: Bednarek, Maren
Industrial Policy Measure: C1 – Activities in open competition limited to the non-Larg…
Last Update Date: 16/04/2020
Update Reason: Tender issue

The objective of the activity is to develop a generic electro-photonic transceiver platform capable of sampling and synthesizing signals directly in the microwave range up to Ka band (34 ghz).The GSP study “New Microwave Sampling Concepts for TTC architecture”has shown that the electro-photonic sampling technology is capable of sampling signals up to Ka band. Whereas standard sampling technologies are still limited up to 20 ghz. The same electro-photonic technology can be used in the ground stations receivers (using microwave sub-sampling) or in the transmitter (signal oversampling). The electro-photonic device is associated with high performance ADC , DAC and FPGA and will be integrated in a transmitter and receiver front end. The generic electro-photonic transceiver will allow a complete reconfigurability of the microwave front end depending on the mission. The digital interface will simplify the antennaarchitecture (by removing all the frequency up and down converters)and it will be directly connected to the back-end digital modem ordigital correlator (by mean of 10 gbit/s ethernet interface for example).The tasks of the activity will include:- Photo-electronic transceiver architecture definition- Transceiver detailed design- Transceiver breadboard manufacturing and test.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”.

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