Presentation of the analysis tool for design of onboard reconfigurable antenna for broadband SatCom and broadcast services

Issue title: ESA Workshop on Radiowave Propagation – 2011

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Nebuloni, Roberto | Resteghini, Laura | Riva, Carlo | Luccini, Marco | Capsoni, Carlo | Martellucci, Antonio | Gabellini, Piero

Affiliations: IEIIT-CNR, Milan, Italy | Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy | European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands | Space Engineering S.p.A., Rome, Italy

Note: [] Corresponding author: Roberto Nebuloni, IEIIT-CNR, Via Ponzio 34/5, 20133 Milan, Italy. E-mails: roberto.nebuloni@ieiit.cnr.it; resteghini@elet.polimi.it (Laura Resteghini); antonio.martellucci@esa.int (Antonio Martellucci); piero.gabellini@space.it (Piero Gabellini).

Abstract: Reconfigurable on-board antenna systems are a potential solution to mitigate the effect of atmospheric fades in broadband SatCom. The on-board power is dynamically shared among the users according to the time and space-varying meteorological conditions in the service area by tuning the antenna radiation pattern. An efficient algorithm of dynamic on-board power allocation is presented here. Preliminary results show the superiority of the adaptive technique over a state-of-the-art fixed antenna system in terms of on-board power reduction to achieve a given service availability target.

Keywords: Propagation impairments, reconfigurable antenna, advanced satellite systems

DOI: 10.3233/SC-130005

Journal: Space Communications, vol. 22, no. 2-4, pp. 91-98, 2013