ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO9357
Open Date: 14/10/2019
Closing Date: 06/01/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 18.1TT.62
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+HU
Tender Type: C
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Products: Ground Segment / Ground Station / Baseband equipment / Telemetry and Telecommand equipment, Tracking, Ranging and Doppler measurement equipment, CODECS, …
Technology Domains: RF Systems, Payloads and Technologies / Telecommunication Systems/Subsystems / Networking Techniques
Establishment: ECSAT
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Technologies and Products Division
Contract Officer: Beardsell, Andrea
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 14/10/2019
Update Reason: Tender issue

On Delegation Request (formerly called Priority 2)Objective:The objective of the activity is to design and test a prototype of abroadband gateway suitable for a Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) network supporting precoding technique.Targeted Improvements:Improve the throughput of HTS network (> 40%) with respect to currently deployed state of art high throughput satellite systems.Description:Precoding techniques have been demonstrated to be able to increase the throughput of VHTS.The best performance can be obtained when there is only one central entity in the network in charge of precoding all user carriers. This architecture fits particularly well within a centralized gateway concept, where all digital baseband processes are implemented in a remote server connectedvia high speed fibers to the distributed remote gateways responsible for the downlink and uplink of the satellite radio frequency signals. Nevertheless, there exist a number of technical issues that have to be investigated in order to be able to deliver the best performance. In particular: scheduler optimization, network timing synchronization, feeder link Doppler pre-compensation, precoder complexity optimization, impact of non-linear distortions.All these issues constitute open questions that have to be properly addressed by modelling and simulations in order to assess their performance benefits and impacts.In this activity a software prototype of a centralized gateway for a broadband satellite network will be designed and tested. The prototype shall be tested withina comprehensive software-based system demonstrator representing several possible system solutions. The demonstrator will include all relevant space and ground segment network elements. All network synchronization issues shall be properly modelled including all time delays and frequency shifts, as well as the sub-systems implementing the proper synchronization tasks. Non-linear effects of the propagation channel as well as all MAC (Medium Access Control) layer aspects of the user traffic will also be considered. Different air interfaces will be tested for the forward link, including the one specified in Annex E of DVB-S2x. An extensive testing campaignof the developed simulator will be carried out.footnote: On Delegation Request (formerly called Priority 2) activities will only be initiated on the explicit request of at least one National Delegation.