ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO9294
Open Date: 18/10/2018
Closing Date: 11/01/2019 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 18.1TT.42
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: Ground Segment / Ground Station / RF equipment / Transmitter and Receiver assemblies, Frequency converters, …
Techology Domains: Ground Station Systems and Networks / Ground Station System / Microwave and Optical Active/Passive Systems
Establishment: ECSAT
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Technologies and Products Division
Contract Officer: Dorval, Nathalie
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 18/10/2018
Update Reason: Tender issue

Objective:The objective of the activity is to develop a prototype of a DVB-S2/RCS Next Generation terminal composed of an antenna and a digital modem implementing interference mitigation techniques. The digital modem shall be able to provide channel state information to allow the network control centre to manage possible interference caused by Fixed Services (FS) terminals onto Fixed Frequency System (FSS) terminals and try allocating a different carrier.Targeted Improvements:Potentially doubling the user link bandwidth available to Fixed-Satellite-Services (FSS) operators, thus potentially doubling the satellite capacity.Description:Future Broadband Satellite Systems target to achieve a system capacity approaching the terabit/s. The most efficient way for pursuing this achievement is to use the available Ka band for user links, moving the feeder links to Q/V band.The use of large portions of Ka band foruser links by uncoordinated stations may represent therefore in the future a necessary resource for increasing the capacity of future broadband satellite communication systems. Commercial satellite operators are currently considering this opportunity.The purposeof this activity is to develop a terminal prototype, which integrates two different approaches to avoid interference to and from FSS services.The first approach is at antenna level. Sidelobe suppression or adaptive algorithm can be applied to antenna architectures of different sort, from simple reflectors with small secondary elements, to Array Fed Reflector solutions, up to active antennas.One of the challenges is the detection of interference, and its direction. A much more challenging issue is how to estimate the position of possible FS terminals which could be victim of interference from the FSS terminal in the Tx direction.The second level is to devise a mechanism to exploit the inherently robustness against interference of the FDM approach offered by DVB-S2. In fact, as amodem performs the signal to noise estimation, in case of FS interference the terminal could search for a different carrier free ofinterference and communicate the channel state to the network control centre, which would adapt the adequate signalling tables accordingly.Any technique able to ensure a proper mitigation of interference between the FS and FSS is a valuable input to the EuropeanConference of Postal and Telecommunications Administration (CEPT) to make the use of the Ka shared band possible by FSS uncoordinated stations.In this activity a prototype of an interference resilient VSAT system for broadband services shall be designed, manufactured and tested. The prototype shall include a full-scale complete antenna, the outdoor unit and an indoor unit based on a commercial DVB-S2 receiver working in conjunction with the Digital Signal Processing required for the antenna.

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