ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-11246
Open Date: 29/03/2022 10:51 CEST
Closing Date: 10/05/2022 13:00 CEST

Multi-carrier, multi-modulation and wide bandwidth operation modes emerging in future payloads for navigation applications are a major challenge in SSPA design: in fact, efficiency, linearity, thermal management and payload overall performance are directly affected by the performance of the high power amplifier. Traditional approaches proposed so far are quite conservative and inherited from GaAs domain: they could lead to non-optimal performance on terms of efficiency and linearity.Nevertheless, as the technology pushestoward the development of GaN-based amplification modules in GNSS application, efficiency and linearity enhancement techniques are showing promising results in terms of enhanced back-off efficiency and better linearity. Architectures that exploit the load modulation concept (as the Doherty amplifier, the out phasing amplifier and the load modulated balanced amplifier, that can improve distortion (such as push-pull amplifier) or that can adapt the biasing (envelope tracking) are eligible for navigation purposes.Recent research effort has been devoted to these schemes themselves, or to variants that hybridize or use two (or more) of these techniques for very specific applications.The rationale of this activity is then to investigate, compare and breadboard the most promising innovative architectures for GaN-based high power modules that could improve performance of the future navigation payloads, comparing their impact on the payload in terms of feasibility, complexity and reliabilityThis activity encompasses the following tasks:- Detailed analysis and performance evaluation of different architectures.- Benchmarking of selected architectures by mean of high-performance, non-space qualified breadboards.- Comprehensive characterisation of the realised SSPA architectures, in order to evaluate and compare in detail their relevant performance (efficiency and output power behaviour, AM/AM, AM/PM, load-pull effects, intermodulation levels, NPR).

Directorate: Directorate of Tech, Eng. Quality
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Maxime Nicolas Gislain Guy
Initiating Service: TEC-EFE
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0901-01 – Technology Developme
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CH+CZ+DE+DK+EE+EL+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 6-E-II-RF Equipment
Products Keywords: 2-A-3-c-Other / 2-L-2/3/4.1-b-Analog: Signal amplifiers