Modelling and design of a flexible spaceborne antennas
Lead Research Organisation:
Heriot-Watt University
Department Name: Sch of Engineering and Physical Science
Abstract
This project will aim to model and design an efficient and reconfigurable spaceborne antennas for the satellite on the move. The antenna would be able to provide high gain, in the mean time with the ability to automatically track the satellite. Many tracking mechanisms are going to be investigated, including reconfigurable materials, and other electronics means. The antenna will be modelled and designed using some in-house electromagnetic tools and commercial eletromagnetic software packages. The selected design will be manufactured and tested in the lab condition.
Organisations
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/R513040/1 | 01/10/2018 | 30/09/2023 | |||
| 2309912 | Studentship | EP/R513040/1 | 01/10/2019 | 31/03/2023 | Alejandro Baldominos-Delgado |
| Description | The demand for broadband services has increased for future generations of satellite communications. One of the key factors to increase the throughput of a communication system is to increase the antenna gain. Multibeam reflector antennas are proposed as one of the better solutions for this purpose, providing connection to a certain coverage using a large number of beams. For future Very High Throughput Satellite systems, thousands of beams will be used to achieve the goal of 1 Tbps. This, combined with the use of advanced resource allocation methods to fully exploit the capabilities of the payload, is leading to highly complex systems that require multidimensional optimization as part of the payload design process. Efficient methodologies for the analysis of these antennas are required to enable the optimization process with low computational effort. This research aims to reduce that computational cost through acceleration techniques. For that purpose, a tool has been developed for the analysis of reflector antennas using Physical Optics (PO) techniques, which requires numerical integrations to obtain the farfield response of the antenna. The computational time highly depends on the number of directions in which the response is calculated. This time has been reduced using acceleration techniques such as interpolation and threshold methods, reducing the number of points that are calculated using PO. Acceleration factors up to 100 have been obtained, reducing the computational time from hours to a few minutes for the calculation of thousands of beams, with an acceptable impact on the accuracy of the results. The discoveries found as a result of this work allow the efficient estimation of the coverage metrics such as total throughput, which is of interest for payload trade-offs and parametric studies at system level. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes of this work will allow researchers to use the tool that has been developed for optimizations of future satellite communication payloads. This will lead to improving the satellite communication data rate per user. The tool is also of interest to antenna engineers for the design of reflector antenna systems. A research paper explaining the tool has been published, which others will be able to know about it and use it. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| Description | The tool and acceleration techniques for the estimation of reflector antenna performance have been used in collaboration with several companies and institutions such as the European Space Agency to research on the optimization of the satellite payload. This will, in long term, produce tools for satellite manufacturers to design satellites in a more optimized way, so the data rate of the satellite is increased, improving the service provided to people, and the cost per bit is reduced. |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Title | HERAS |
| Description | HERAS is a tool developed in Matlab with the capability of analysis of reflector antennas using Physical Optics. Access to the source code allows the user to develop tools for their own purposes. In particular, this tool has been used as part of this research to develop acceleration techniques for the analysis of Multibeam Reflector Antennas for satellite applications. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | Efficient estimation of multibeam coverage performance with acceleration factor with respect to the full computation scenario up to 100. |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.3390/s23031425 |