Objective
Telecom satellites are growing like giants employing multiple beams to provide high speed connectivity and broad coverage. Under exploding capacity requirements, vendors admit that a technology and payload architecture switch is mandatory. The new technology has to deliver practical, low-power and scalable components with high performance under harsh environment conditions. BEACON aims to provide this technology and disrupt the transition to multibeam Tb/s satellites. Addressing cost, performance and volume, BEACON invests on the right mix of 3 photonic technologies used in terrestrial telecommunications, i.e. GaAs, Si and doped fibres and combines them to deliver a compact optical beam-forming technology delivering the massive amount of bandwidth. BEACON develops ultra-linear GaAs Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZM) exhibiting >75dB spurious free dynamic range, 15dB higher than conventional MZMs. MZMs will exhibit: up to 35GHz frequency operation matching Ka-band frequency plans and 1/2 the size of mainstream LiNbO3 MZMs. 6’’ GaAs wafers enable high volume production. BEACON integrates and co-packages 4xMZM arrays with new packaging method. BEACON develops the first scalable multi-core rad-hard erbium doped optical fibre amplifier (EDFA). The EDFA employs new rad-hard doped microstructured fibre and enabling: >50% electrical power consumption reduction than using conventional EDFAs and small form factor packaging. BEACON integrates an innovative photonic beamformer (BFN) using CMOS compatible silicon photonic fabrication together with Ge diodes. The BFN chip consumes <7.5-times less chip area than low-index contrast BFNs. It allows 4 orders of magnitude faster beamsteering. BEACON integrates the system with BFN control and antenna array to demonstrate that the technology can scale to Tb/s capacities with considerable savings in size/power against current kW consuming systems. Component space assessment will guide the technology towards fully space qualified systems.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering vehicle engineering aerospace engineering satellite technology
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering information engineering telecommunications
- natural sciences physical sciences optics fibre optics
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-SPACE-2013-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
TS21 3FD Sedgefield Durham Cleveland
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.