SatixFy UK, designers of next-generation satellite communication chips and systems, have introduced a an Electronically Steered Multi-Beam Array antennas (ESMA). This ESMA has been developed with a scalable architecture that supports any antenna size with up to 1 million elements (in Ku band 10m by 10m), any frequency through a dedicated RFIC, any polarization including circular and linear simultaneously, any shape including conformal arrays and up to 32 beams both in receive and transmit configurations. The antenna, based on a fully digital beam forming technology, supports an instantaneous bandwidth of over 1 GHz and works in both TDD and FDD modes. It has an expected array efficiency of better than 70%. The antenna includes an ACU (Antenna Control Unit), self-calibration capabilities, and on-chip trigonometric calculator for fast tracking and beam steering.
The antenna supports any external modem through L-band interface but is best utilized when closely coupled with SatixFy's current 500 MHz baseband modem chips (Sx3000). ESMA antennas use less power based on the waveform duty cycle. If there is no traffic, no power will be needed from the antenna, such as in DVB S2X time slicing (Annex M). With its integrated modem, the antenna supports various operational modes such as TDD (half duplex) and FDD (full duplex) and very fast Acquisition and Tracking. The SatixFy baseband chip can also serve as an additional DVB S2X overlay. SatixFy's next generation 1 GHz baseband chips will enable the simultaneous use of 8 beams and 8 modems out of a single antenna, through a single modem chip and a single Ethernet port providing both data and control.
SatixFy's Ku band IoT terminals with 64 and 256 antenna elements are being showcased at Satellite 2018. SatixFy is in the process of developing an aero antenna through the recently announced joint venture cooperation with Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE). Other applications using SatixFy's ESMA technology are multi-beam payload for solar drones and small satellites, self-installed fixed antenna, multi-beam DTH antenna, connected cars and mobile receive only antennas for Satellite TV in cars. Click here to learn more about SatixFy.
