SatixFy UK Limited introduced the world’s first ESMA (Electronically Steered Multi-Beam Array) Ku-band 256 element array antenna at this week’s SmallSat Symposium 2019 in Mountain View, CA, USA. Utilizing the company’s fully digital beam forming technology, the new antenna array is being demonstrated working in an Antenna Micro Test Range to show multi-beam capabilities, antenna patterns and other performance parameters.
The ESMA antenna can serve both as a stand-alone IoT terminal or a building block for a larger sized antenna and is currently available in 11-12 GHz receive and 13.75-14.5 GHz transmit frequencies. SatixFy is in the final stages of developing a complete terminal with an integrated SatixFy modem based on its ASIC bringing complete acquisition and tracking capabilities. This terminal will be critical in the evolving Small Satellites eco-system requiring tracking multiple NGSO satellites in a constellation and transferring high data throughputs for imaging and communications.
They have developed a 256 element building block that can scale to very large arrays with large bandwidth without significant degradation. This antenna is a part of their complete terminal supporting multi-beams with their own modems and control of hardware and software. SatixFy is currently demonstrating these antennas to interested customers and will have a demo on a moving car just weeks from now.
SatixFy’s antenna uses in-house developed chips – Prime and Beat. Prime is a Digital Beam Former ASIC, employing True Time Delay technology for 32 antenna elements, capable of processing over 2 Tbps of data. Beat is a Ku-band RFIC including separate up and down converters and LNA/SSPA for any polarization for 4 antenna elements. The antenna is capable of simultaneously pointing, tracking and managing multiple beams at multiple polarizations. Using digital beam forming technology allows the antenna to handle wide bandwidth using a large number of antenna elements and without beam squint. Due to its unique digital features, nulls can be directed towards specific interferers.
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