Smart antenna terminal for broadband aeronautical applications

Abstract

The growing demand for broadband multimedia services urges the aeronautical industry to provide bi-directional on-board communication services in near future. Nowadays, first aircrafts are already being equipped with the technology to provide internet access for staff and passengers. Up to now, these solutions are developed to operate in L-Band, due to the available satellite systems and affordable RF-components in this frequency range. Considering broadband multimedia applications, however, it is obvious that in near future, the technology will have to explore higher frequency regions like Ka-Band, where the bandwidth required can be provided. Several studies show that for airborne broadband satellite communications, the terminal antenna is one of the key components in the system design. To compensate for the aircrafts movement, the terminal antenna must be steerable to provide satellite tracking. Due to limitations of mechanically steerable antennas, an electronically steerable array antenna based on digital beamforming is considered to be the most promising solution. Still, the development of such antenna arrays in Ka-Band technology faces high demands regarding performance, integration and, last but not least, component costs. To push the development of this technology, a project called SANTANA (Smart Antenna Terminal) was initialised in 2001 with a two years time frame. This project, funded by the German government (BMBF) on behalf of the DLR, aims to develop a sub-module of an electronically steerable, bi-directional satellite terminal in Ka-Band technology.