Description du projet
Un composant essentiel adaptable et évolutif pour les antennes SatCom
Avec l’internet des objets, les technologies de communication et d’électronique progressent rapidement. Elles se pressent de répondre à la demande croissante du marché en matière de percées et d’innovations dans le domaine des satellites aéroportés, spatiaux et du segment terrestre. Le projet FLEXCOM, financé par l’UE, entend tirer parti de cette demande en développant et en introduisant une nouvelle classe de technologie d’antennes réseau à commande de phase pour les satellites. Cette technologie sera flexible et disposera de capacités de reconfiguration sans précédent. Elle se présentera sous la forme d’une dalle d’antenne qui pourra être utilisée comme élément de base pour les antennes SatCom, leur flexibilité permettant de les modifier à chaque fois que des innovations se présenteront.
Objectif
FLEXCOM aims at building a new class of phased arrays technology for airborne, spaceborne and Earth segment satellite communications with an unpreceded level of flexibility and re-configurability. Specifically, FLEXCOM will deliver a highly integrated antenna tile conceived to be the building block through which several SatCom antenna types may be build. The FLEXCOM tiles are designed to be used in different scenarios and for different applications, so responding to the needs of a continuously evolving SatCom market and enforcing a significant reduction of life-cycle costs.
The developed tiles by will provide
- Broadband TX/RX operations at K/Ka band in a single radiating aperture;
- Possibility to adopt two different beamforming cores, namely Hybrid Analog/Digital beamforming or, for the first time for K-Ka SatCom applications, a fully-digital beamforming with direct conversion;
- Electronic steering, multibeam and smart antennas functionalities;
FLEXCOM will develop and integrate in each tile the following beyond the state-of-the-art subsystems:
- TX/RX K/Ka band Analog Front Ends (AFE) based on multicore SiGeBiCMOS RFICs, including phase shifters and down conversion stages;
- A Digital Beamforming processor dedicated to satcom applications;
- Dual band radiating apertures covering K/Ka satcom and 5G bands.
The HYPAC technology will be demonstrated building and testing three prototypes relevant to real use cases:
- a prototype for Internet of Things and Machine to Machine applications;
- a DRA integrated on a UAV platform;
- a feed for a transmit array, intended for High Altitude Platform application.
FLEXCOM will contribute to the development of the European research and technology ecosystem combining in the consortium, a strong industrial partnership covering both the SatCom (THALES and TTI) and the 5G network (NOKIA and SIAE) area as well as key players in the supply chain (TE2V, ANTECNICA and EVATRONIX). This partnership will include two academic instit
Champ scientifique
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Programme(s)
Régime de financement
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
43124 Parma
Italie
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.