X/Ka-Band Dual-Polarized Digital Beamforming Synthetic Aperture Radar

Abstract

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Advanced Antennas for Small Satellites

“…Fig. 16 shows the antenna developed in the European project DIFFERENT funded by the European Commission [54]. The antenna system is a deployable relector fed by a highly integrated dual-band (Ka/X) digital beam forming (DBF) planar feed array.…”

An Integrated Radar Tile for Digital Beamforming X-/Ka-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar Instruments

“…For this reason, in this work the challenge was to design a highly dense PCB using a standard industrial process yet guaranteeing the required level of density and limiting the losses. A first example of complex stack-up for this application was presented in [6]. However, this configuration allows only the integration of a subset of the tile components.…”

“…With respect to the stack-up model employed in [6], in the one here proposed the types of vias are reduced from 4 to 2, namely:…”

“…This system uses a hybrid analog/digital beam-forming scheme where groups of four sub-arrays share the same digital channel. Another possible implementation is being developed within the framework of the EU project [6]. The challenge of this project is to implement a receive-only SAR sensor capable to acquire data in two bands, namely in X and Ka band, in single-pass full polarimetric mode.…”

“…The required compactness is reached distributing the different components into three boards named: i) RF board; ii) ADC board and iii) DGT board. The basic design principles underpinning the adoption of the proposed configuration are described in [6] where the simulated and measured results of the isolated subsystems of the RF board are also presented. This paper expands upon the previous work by providing an extensive report on the integration strategy along with detailed numerical and experimental assessment of a fully assembled RF-board tile.…”