Design, Trade-Off and Advantages of a Reconfigurable Dual Reflector for Ku Band Applications
Shaped reflectors form one of the cornerstones of satellite telecommunications today, and have in all but a few cases replaced the array-fed parabolic reflector antennas for contoured beam generation. The evolution started in the 1990’es with the advent of efficient and reliable software to generate the desired reflector profile on the basis of the requirements to the orbital position of the satellite and the desired coverage areas on the ground.
The increased in orbit lifetime of today’s telecommunication satellites combined with the rapid development of the offered services require always more flexible payloads. In this context, the existence of antennas that can be reconfigured in orbit, and thus accommodate future service scenarios, has recently attracted the interest of the international community.
Publication: 31st ESA Antenna Workshop Digest
Place: ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 18-20 May 2009