Renaud Chiniard

A Multi Facets Composite Panel Reflectarray Antenna for a Space Contoured Beam Antenna in Ku Band

A 1.3m piecewise re∞ectarray demonstrator has been designed, manufactured and tested, that radiates a contoured beam coverage over North America. A very good agreement is obtained between the theoretical and measured radiation patterns. Many innovative techniques and processes were developed in order to meet the challenging speciflcations of a space telecommunication antenna.

A 1.3 m facetted reflectarray in Ku band

Thales Alenia Space and its partners have developed a facetted reflectarray, made of five flat panels arranged along an offset parabolic profile. Faceting the demonstrator is essential for achieving satisfactory RF performances, and especially the largest bandwidth. A 1.3m piecewise reflectarray demonstrator has been designed, manufactured and tested, with a coverage over Canada, US, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. A very good agreement is obtained between the theoretical and measured radiation patterns. Many innovative techniques and processes were developed in order to meet the challenging specifications of a space telecommunication antenna. They are detailed in this article.

3D Packaging Technology for Integrated Antenna Front-Ends

Thanks to Vertical Multi-Chip Module packaging technology (MCM-V), a novel concept of integrated antenna feed in Ka band has been developed. This technology enables the integration of active elements very close to the radiating surface, which reduces dramatically the weight and volume of the antenna. In this paper the different technological building blocks are described, and the measurements obtained on the first breadboard are discussed. The promising results obtained should lead to a major breakthrough for active receive antennas, driving down cost and complexity.

Circularly polarized EBG antenna using meander lines polarizer as a reflector focal feed for Ka-band space applications

This article presents a first step towards the design of a multi-feed circularly polarized EBG antenna which serves as a reflector focal array. The circular polarization is obtained by using a multilayer meander lines polarizer, placed above a linearly polarized EBG antenna. The details of the antenna and the polarizer are given and the “transparent” effect of the polarizer on the antenna feed performance is emphasized after comparing the performance with and without the polarizer. The designed antenna is used to illuminate a reflector antenna for RX Ka-band space applications [29.5 - 30] GHz, and the coverage performance will be shown.

Earth deck antenna providing coverage flexibility

Most of Ku-band telecommunications satellites currently in orbit provide a fixed coverage. Enhancing flexibility of GEO satellite antennas is one of the major challenges for new-generation Ku-band payloads. A simple solution to offer (partial) coverage flexibility is to design a passive reconfigurable antenna, with switchable shaped beams. In this paper, 2 kinds of earth deck dual-reflector antennas,will be described. The RF constraints (near field, XPD, bandwidth, phase law) required to optimize such antennas will be detailed. A typical scenario of mission flexibility and associated performances will be presented.